


with eyes of gold and veins of fire

by kissingiscool



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Centaur Liam, Exhibitionism, Light Angst, M/M, Mentioned Infidelity, Public Hand Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, Unicorn Niall, Vampire Harry, Vampire Louis, Werewolf Zayn, and niall only has the horn, anywya, cant decide if this is angsty or lightly angsty, full blown centaur and unicorn, hozier drove the inspiration for a lot of events, i would've tagged him, ill tag both, liam only has the horse legs, someone's named nick but it's not nick grimshaw, there's fingering too, they're not like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-08 16:19:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3215549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissingiscool/pseuds/kissingiscool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Louis loves with the heart of a thousand beating drums, piercing and relentless, scorching in the rhythm of the night.</em>
</p><p>(the vampire au with the laundromat fiasco, the lessons learned in mending bleeding hearts, and the rightfulness in coming apart and falling together.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	with eyes of gold and veins of fire

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello hello !! as some of you may know, i've written a vampire au before, but it was sooooo badly written that i deleted it and decided to rewrite it with my upgraded writing skills!!!! you never stop learning!!
> 
> i wanna thank my little buttons [olivia](http://dimpledlouis.tumblr.com/), [crystal](http://queerkid1999.tumblr.com/), [mackenzie](http://tummyhand.tumblr.com/) and [emma](http://povverbottoms.tumblr.com/) for helping me brainstorm and figure things out!!!
> 
> louis [(x)](http://niightchanges.tumblr.com/post/90164624055/boyfriendsandbeanies-x-im-almost-100/)  
> harry [(x)](http://niightchanges.tumblr.com/post/90415656545/)  
> zayn [(x)](http://niightchanges.tumblr.com/post/96135312710/x/)  
> niall [(x)](http://niightchanges.tumblr.com/post/97471477450/rose-bowl-pasadena-ca-13-9/)  
> liam [(x)](http://louls.tumblr.com/post/98427525794/)
> 
> to describe this fic: it's like washing yourself in cold water, but liking the ache and the way it touches your skin, and then stepping out of the water and into the warm air.
> 
> ENJOY.

It's five in the morning, where the stars are still glittering their fiery, alabaster substances and the moon remains just as mysterious as it had when it rose over the horizon last night. The studio is empty all except for Louis, stretching his legs and trying to get his tired limbs to cooperate, bending this way and that between yawns. The veins in his arms pull taut and make them shiver as chills run over his body, the studio trying get accustomed to the temperature his set it at. His mind flickers back to when he would be sitting in a studio resembling this one, sitting himself quietly on the cold floor and imitating the movements of the people around him, feeling so very out of place.

The door behind him clicks as its opened, and he turns his head to find Zayn entering the room, looking just as tired as he feels as he rubs a hand through his unkempt hair, scratching behind the ears and wiping yawning tears from his eyes. "Good morning. Or, good night, more like."

Louis spins on his bum to face him, pulling his knees up to his chest with a grin of mischief on his face. "When I told you to be here at this time last night, I wasn't serious, Zayn."

"Well, too bad, I'm already here, and it's a bit of a routine with you anyways," Zayn yawns, plopping down in a uncomfortable, foldable chair and slouching down in it.  _Poor boy._  Lazily, he scoots up beside the stereo sat on a table. "What're you guys practicing today?"

"Not us.  _Me_. I've got a solo this Christmas concert, and the last thing I wanna do is be here for it. All that fresh blood running around, knocking on my door to sing Christmas carols at me and I'll be here, twirling till my brain is dizzy and my toes are numb. Like, don't get me wrong - dancing is my entire  _life_ , you know that, but honestly, I'm tired of missing out on blood bursts like this, and I don't like being out in public on full moons. I get dangerous," Louis mumbles, pointing his toes and shifting on each foot repeatedly. "And I starve for weeks unless I can get stored blood from someone else."

"You won't be seeing me on Christmas Eve - maybe I'll save you some blood in a jar if I've got the right mind to contain it," Zayn mutters, picking a piece of lint from his jacket and tossing it on the floor with a roll of his eyes.

"A were-man after my own dead heart, sacrificing his lethal ways for the likes of me," Louis smirks playfully, grinning. "Pop in  _1989_  and turn to  _Wonderland_. I've been practicing that number for weeks - probably months now, really. Liam should know, but he never really helps me during practice and opts for distracting me instead."

Zayn's back stiffens at the name, ears perking up in interest, and Louis grins a bit - Zayn and Liam have been attached at the hip since the start of high school here, the absolute best of friends (save for that one time they were rough-housing, and Liam  _may_  have gotten close enough to his face for them to kiss, and they  _may_  have done just that for a  _bit_  longer than a second for it to be an accident; Zayn  _might've_  flipped out over it for several days after). "Liam? When'd you see him last? He hasn't been answering my messages, and I went over yesterday and his mum won't tell me what's up."

"Ah, well..." His memory wavers back to when he'd made a promise to him late in the afternoon, a gloomy day full of frost-blue rain and porcelain clouds in the comforts of his closet, staring at the horse leg laid out on the floor with his pained gasps of  _Don't tell Zayn ever_  and  _He'll think I'm so fucking weird nobody else knows but you, Haz, and Niall._  "Maybe he's just feeling poorly and he's got a weird - illness or something." Zayn's brows furrow like he's doubtful and he opens his mouth, but Louis cuts him off before he can speak. "C'mon, I've got a dance routine I need to perfect in the next three weeks. Pop it in and let's get crackin'."

"Single-handedly the  _worst_  thing I've ever heard you say," Zayn murmurs lowly but presses play either way, the tips of his ruby lips quirking upwards in a fond half-smile.

Louis points his toes as the notes lap at his ears like ocean waves, and he bares his shimmering fangs at him in the mirror, eyes glowing brilliant honey, mischievous in the best of ways because it's what he does best. "I'd doubt it," he smirks, raising his arms above his head and beginning his routine.

It's just as graceful and chilling as the song itself, filled with twister-like pirouettes and dizzying flips and aching bends of his body this way and that. And it's odd sight, too, what with his black ballet shoes laced on while he's dressed in tights and a ratty t-shirt he probably snagged from the back of his dad's old truck. A few more quick whips of his body to the rhythm and an ominous bow of his head, and the routine is over.

Zayn applauds accordingly as Louis walks over, sweat dampening his hairline and neck. "Bra - bravo, bravo! Brilliant, absolutely life-altering and a real thinker once you tilt your head and squint -"

In response, Louis takes his towel and whacks him with it, his eyes a gentle sea foam sapphire as he grins at him and dabs at his face. "My feet are quite literally yelling at me for the abuse I'm handing them right now. They think it's too early for this. It's never too early for this," he elaborates matter-of-factly, squirting his water bottle into his mouth.

"Well, that was certainly something! Sometimes I worry about you, though, Lou. You're always working, working, or...working. You never relax, you're always sore, you've got a headache from 9 to 5 - or 5 to 9, more like. You need to settle down or you'll burn yourself out before you've even gotten started. It's only the fourth month into the school year, Lou," Zayn reasons, pressing his yawn back down his throat and letting his eyes burn with it. "No doubt, you're incredibly smart and talented, but even the most talented people need to relax sometimes, yeah?"

Louis' shoulders slump in defenselessness like he's been caught in the act of something as he collapses flat onto the floor. "It's not like I  _want_  to hurt and have headaches all the time; I've just got - too much time on my hands. I mean, Zayn, really think about it. You're always cooped up in your house before five o' clock can even approach your doorstep and Niall is  _always_  with his dumb rocker band -"

"Hey, they're pretty good, though -"

"Not the point. Point is that I'm not getting the attention I'm craving, so I need to distract myself, feel like I've got  _no_  time on my hands when in reality -"

"So this is gonna be another rant about how you can't find and probably never will find another vampire and a male one at that? Well, it's not unheard of -"

"But it's unlikely! There's very few of my kind and chances are I'm not gonna find a tall, lean, dark and handsome vampire to cater to my needs. I'm stuck with mortals, Zayn, and I live  _forever_ ," Louis whines, tossing his head to the side. "I don't wanna fall in love with a mortal. What vampire wants to fall in love with a mortal?"

Zayn shrugs, stretching his legs out and sighing at the relieved dull ache, as if he's the one who nearly broke his neck dancing. "You can bite them, can't you? You know, at  _full moon_  and that. Make 'em immortal."

"Then I would have to go through the hassle of teaching them everything about being a vampire and knowing when to feed and how to curb your hunger like - no. No. I want someone who knows exactly what it's like to be me and the only way I'll ever find that someone is if that someone is a vampire. Plain and simple. Or - not so plain and simple, I suppose."

Zayn chuckles, eyes shimmering now as he ruffles the softness of his hair, pushing his head to the side. "You'll figure it out eventually. Besides, we're young and you've got a whole  _lifetime_  of mistakes you can make before you figure it out. Show me what else you've got lined up for this Christmas get-up."

Louis wrinkles his nose. "Nah, we should go get breakfast. All this talk of finding your forever is making me hungry. And sad."

Zayn throws his arm around his shoulder and pulls the both of them to their feet with his towel and water bottle in hand. "Bet they're gonna have those nasty mini pancakes in a pack this morning."

.     .     .

Harry lets the shadows engulf him as he moves to the side, hearing them approach the door as they go on about how bad school breakfast and lunch is, the contrast of their voices echoing through the darkened hallway. The time he was meant to arrive in the band room has long been overdue, sensing that Niall and Liam are wondering where he's been the past few mornings instead of at rehearsal with them.

Truthfully, he's been doing this quite often before he and his band agreed to start rehearsing in the mornings since they couldn't find as much time in the afternoons due to all the schoolwork, peaking through the rectangular window and watching Louis spin and jump and twist and bend, listening in on his and Zayn's conversations. The reason why he does it may conveniently not come to mind at the moment, but the darkness shadowing the brightness of Louis' eyes every time he looks at him piqued his curiosity and if anything, made him look at him the same way.

Harry sometimes likes to pretend that he doesn't know why Louis dislikes him so much, likes to pretend that he can't fathom the vendetta he holds against him, but memories of he and Louis, pearl white skin melding with canary gold, haunt him at night. Those dreams and nightmares he can't quite recall, but press weights down in his chest like a thousand anchors sinking in the sand underwater.

 _We had a bit of a falling out, is all_ , he tells himself as he wanders down the hall like a ghost in the dark, pallid and drawn and invisible.  _Neither one of us were telling the whole truth and you can't have a relationship if you don't trust one another. We just weren't telling the truth._  It makes it easier for him to think that it was that simple and harmless, that they  _(he)_  ruined a perfect thing by not being honest so the guilt won't bear down on him and make him crumble.

He enters the band room quietly, floral scarf draped around his neck, his shirt unbuttoned to his chest, hair long and sweeping over the tops of his shoulders. Honey sunlight drips streams through the thin blinds, glittering and flickering on the unclean tiled floor as the sun rises over the horizon, stretching its arms to greet the world with its light. He glances up to find Niall's feet propped up on the keys of the piano, head tossed back with his blue and green snap back covering his eyes and lips parted with sleep. Liam is still nowhere to be seen, and Josh has himself laid out on his drums, head in his arms. "So much for band practice," he mumbles.

Swiftly, he gaits to Josh, swiping his drumstick out of his loosened hand and promptly smashes it to the drum beside his head. It's like a chain reaction, dominoes falling over one another: Josh wakes with a start, tumbling onto the floor on his back with a startled cry as Niall slips off of the bench, folding himself in like a portable folding chair. "Fuck!" he cries, grimacing as he tries to free himself from between the wall and the bench.

Josh scrubs a hand over his face. "So I see you're not in the mood this morning," he comments from the floor, tossing an arm over his eyes.

Harry huffs, shoulders slumping. "No, it's not that, I just - I think too much about things, is all. Any who, Liam probably won't be here until Friday, at best. He's come down with something awful."

"Oh no, Styles; you're not getting away from the subject that easy. What's on your mind, lad? Take a seat on Nialler's lap here and tell him all about it," Niall quips, scooting the bench over to where Harry is standing and patting his thigh with a smirk, eyes sparkling with curiosity and knowledge.

Harry snorts and knocks his cap off of his head, settling for the seat beside him. Josh is still on the floor, but he sits up and peers at him over his drum set, crossing his legs and twirling his drumsticks between his fingers. He sighs unevenly. Right. "Right, well. I'll be honest. Louis is on my mind."

"When is he  _not_  on your mind, though?"

"It's not like I  _want_  to miss him and whatnot," Harry elaborates, ignoring his comment, "and I don't want to hate him either. I just want to stop dreading lunch and bracing myself for the inevitable fights we'll have, you know? I want a piece of what we had back, even if it takes a lot of time working up to. It was just a mistake, you know? A foolish mistake. Everybody makes those. And it was a long time ago."

"It's December now, Harry; it was only four months ago. Yeah, everybody makes mistakes, but not everybody makes the mistakes  _you_  made. If I were Louis, I'd hold it against you for a pretty long time, and I'm being generous because you're my friend. I know you like thinking the both of you were at fault -"

"Because we were -"

"Drunkenly making out with his sister and then lying about it does  _not_  equate to him lying about where he was headed that one weekend, Harry. So sure, it was a mistake and you didn't mean it, but I wouldn't want to be living with the daily reminder of where your lips were versus where they should've been," says Niall, stretching out across the floor and setting his thumbnail between his teeth. "Think you should wave a white flag and call it quits, to be honest."

Harry's eyes train themselves on the toe of his boots, eyebrows narrowed and lips down turned in a frown - a face he always makes, really, but he's genuinely upset this time around.  _White flag. Wave a white flag and call it quits._  He stands, abruptly so, and rolls his sleeves up to act as a distraction. "The bell will ring in two minutes. We should head to the breakfast hall while we have time. You know, nutrition and all that," he murmurs, pulling the door open and wandering down the hallway.

Niall follows closely behind, as always. "You don't even like school breakfast."

Harry lips quirk up, running his tongue over his teeth, fangs scrapping the tip of it. His lifeless, poisoned heart beats in time with the steps he takes, eyes always green and lethal for someone as kind as he. "I suppose I decided to look at things from a new perspective."

.     .     .

_"Tell me a joke."_

_They lie on their backs in a hollow tree house, windowless and closed in save for the lack of the roof that they vowed to build later and never did. They're only twelve now, and they're getting splinters in their necks and palms lying down like this, but the sky is cerulean and numbingly clear; it saves them from the burden of feeling pain. The tree branches howl and sigh with the wind, swaying and shedding its shamrock leaves onto their faces - faces not broken down yet by the immorality of what they are and what they'll become._

_Louis reaches over and twists Harry's nipple, grinning when he yelps. He turns his face to him, cheek rubbing against the roughness of the wooden floor. "Tell me a joke, Haz. One about vampires. You never let me down with your puns."_

_Harry glances down at him, eyes twinkling with childish innocence, short curls falling around his head. "Would you be disappointed if I didn't have one?"_

_Louis rolls his eyes and turns back to look at the sky. "You always have one."_

_"What do you know? Did you find that out with your 'vampire senses'?" Harry quips, pressing his finger to his temple and pushing his head to the side, smile creases and dimples sinking into his face. "Did you read my mind?"_

_Louis bends his finger back, grinning triumphantly as Harry howls. "I don't know how to read minds yet, dingus." (This is a lie, and Harry will discover it when he's older and they're caught beneath an oak tree in the pouring rain, and Louis will admit that he spent most of his time reading his mind than paying attention to his own thoughts. Harry will be endeared.) "I get migraines if I try too hard."_

_Harry wrinkles his nose, twisting a finger full of the hem of his shirt as he squints his eyes at the sky like something will fall out of it. "It must suck to be a vampire, huh?"_

_It's silent for a moment, and Harry doesn't even have to look at Louis to know he's trying his hardest not to laugh, can feel his tenseness against his thigh before Louis' cackles and snorts tremble throughout his body and into Harry's. "That's - that's awful. That's the worst one yet, Harry."_

_Their laughter echoes against the sky, engraving themselves in the weathered walls. It makes Harry feel like he's caught joy in a jar, looking at Louis and his ruffled hair and the length of his eyelashes brushing against his cheekbones. He wants to carry this memory in his pocket and never let it go, getting lost in the endless sky._

.     .     .

Pastel colored dust gently glides over the concrete as Louis blows over his chalk and charcoal markings littering the ground, pale fuchsia merging with sea foam green in swirls of teal and sapphire. Hues of gold and punch-pink stain his cheeks and forehead as he rubs his wrist against them, cold sweat breaking across his skin. He leans back, staring down at the product of his work thus far.  _One petal down, seven more to go._

Glistening, coal-black tips of boots appear in his peripheral vision just then, and in complete honesty, Louis doesn't even have to look up to know who's standing in front of him. Sort of makes him remember why he regrets taking this art class in the first place. He keeps his eyes trained on the ground instead, brushing his hands against his apron. "Do you need something?"

Harry takes a seat in front of him, sitting criss-cross and leaning forward on his knees because he wants to get a good look at his eyes again. There will be nothing there for him but hollow rage, but the striking color of grey cobalt chills him to his bone marrow. "We need to talk," he murmurs, searching his ever-wandering eyes.

Louis would spit his heart up and stomp it in the ground, if it meant anything to keep his emotions at bay forever. His breath catches in his throat, but he does his best to play it off and shrug a shoulder. "Thought we were done talking four months ago." (He hadn't meant to let Harry know that he's been keeping time and counting the days since he'd ignored Harry's persistent knocks on his door, ignored his never-ending texts and calls. Ignored his entire existence, as if it hadn't interrupted his own.)

"There wasn't any talking involved in what happened four months ago, Louis. And yeah, we've been talking, but our vocal exchanges haven't been very pleasant. We need to talk, properly."

Louis' eyes snap from cobalt to crimson in flit of rage as he looks at him now, eyes sparkling with repressed ire broken free from its cage. "You sucked face with my sister twice! What makes you think I'd wanna talk! What, you think we can 'set our differences aside' and start over again?"

Harry's ears turn red at the tips, and it's not from the finger-numbing cold. "I don't wanna fight with you anymore," and he tries to say it with as much calmness and fairness as he can muster, but his voice trembles with underlying anger. "I'm tired of fighting. It's been  _weeks and weeks_  of cold stares and heated arguments across the lunch table and I am fucking  _tired_  of  _fighting_! So yeah, I'd quite like to start over because my blatant stupidity shouldn't have tainted a perfect thing."

The dryness of the cotton Louis' apron has to offer him scratches against his cold fingertips, trembling hands clutching fistfuls of it and he's been latching onto it since Harry started speaking.  _A lifeline_. He releases it with the breath he's been holding, coming out in front of him in a misty cloud. He leans forward and continues his work, as if Harry had never been there to begin with. His existence uninterrupted.

Harry shivers, fists clenching and unclenching in unsteady rhythm. "You know, I'm not - I'm not going anywhere. Not until we fix whatever this is. I just want what we had back, you know? I just want us to be okay again. I - I fucked up. I messed up really bad with you. I'm not asking for a second chance at what we started during the summer. I just kinda - I want to start over. We can start over, and I'll tell you everything that's been sitting under my tongue since day one. I'll tell you everything, Louis."

 _I'll tell you everything._  Louis huffs and sits up, looking him in his bare eyes for the first time in months. His lips quirk up. "Wouldn't wanting starting over be asking for a second chance?"

Harry blinks. "I - ah -"

"I'm only joking, Harry. I'm only kidding." Pause. Inhale. Exhale. Pause. "Fine. We can start over - you tell me everything and I'll tell you. No secrets or lies anymore, okay? We're not doing that again, yeah? I've had enough of that."

"Yeah, yeah, no secrets, no lies."

Louis holds out his pinky. "Swear on my dead heart?"

Harry locks pinkies with his and squeezes. "Swear on your dead heart, and anyone else's."

. . .

It's a start, really, with the pinky promising. Louis never has any problem with jumping right into things and beginning them right off the bat, but as he covers his work with a plastic bin and Harry is hovering by him, training his facial features to prevent the snarl twisting into his mouth proves harder than he initially thought.

He hadn't really gotten much done after that, his quivering hand mixing rotten-looking colors, forcing him to blow over it and restart. Details sloppy and uneven, jagged around the edges. He wasn't nearly as satisfied with the second petal of his flower than he was with his first, and he pretended that he couldn't figure out why, but the warm and overbearing presence sat in front of him was more than a possible factor.

"I could walk you to your creative writing class," offers Harry, slinging his midnight black ransack over his shoulder as they stroll down the concrete walkway outside of the art room, dodging plastic coverings at every turn. Harry stares at him like if he looks away for one second, then there would be dire consequences. Louis hates that it makes him flush madly.

"Of course you can, we take all the same class - sorry," Louis interrupts himself, halting and pressing his lips together as he stares ahead because if he looks at Harry, his face will only darken in hues of red. "I'm just so used to doing it, you know -"

"Yeah, I do. 'S okay. Takes some working-up-to."

(It hits Louis like a blast of frigid wind that before things came apart, Harry had never been mean or rude or disrespectful. Not once, not even to people with the most hollow hearts and cold souls. The memory and taste of betrayal almost slips his mind.) He clenches his fist around the strap of his ransack and continues walking, more than mildly hoping that if Harry notices the blush on his cheeks then he'll chalk it up to the temperature.

The static that crackles and snaps between them every time they brush shoulders or hands is completely uncalled for - well, actually, it is called for, because they're walking so close beside each other that Louis is afraid he might trip over Harry's feet if he dares to walk closer. He puts space between them, a metaphorical sinkhole dipping into the frosted ground as he mumbles, "Sorry." It's undecided on whether he apologizes for touching him or if he apologizes for stepping away from him to prevent the touching.

The sun is freed from the cloud's obscured prison by the time they reach their class only to be redirected back out. "We're having class outside today," their teacher murmurs, groans and whines of protest resounding behind them as they trudge back outside into the stale air's unwelcoming arms, its calloused hands brushing sharply against their faces. Louis snags the scarf he has hanging from his belt loop, wrapping it around his mouth. A foolish thought crosses his mind that maybe, this way he won't have to open his mouth.

Seating himself on a stone bench and placing his ransack beside him, he's startled as Harry takes a seat beside him, fitting snugly by his side.  _Like he belongs there forever and always._  His soul, barren and stoic, presses a hand to his heart and clutches it tight at the fleeting thought; it makes him catch his breath. The gentle press of Harry's thigh into his own grounds him back into reality. He chances a glance at his face, and he's got his head down like he's hoping that he won't catch the smirk on his face. Louis would kill him now, just suck all of the blood out of his tall and lean body, if he had it in him anymore to do so.

They sit in the numbing cold with their journals open in their laps and notes scribbled swiftly across the page, listening to their teacher blather on about observing your surroundings and making sacrifices to find the perfect scene  _("Even if it causes a bit of discomfort, it'll be worth it.")_  before Harry turns to him and lightly presses his lips to his ear, making Louis jump before he speaks, "I hear vampires give  _killer_  hickeys."

A smile breaks over Louis' face before he can bother to control it, eyes crinkling absurdly and teeth sinking into his lower lip as he represses a giggle. (It falls over him like an army of mist that he hasn't laughed or even  _smiled_  like this with Harry in what feels like the yielding forever, when it's only been but a few months. Long, empty, lonely months.) He snatches his ear away from Harry's lips and hides his face, and somehow this doesn't feel like he's forcing himself to let him in again, if only a little bit. Then again, everything's always come naturally when it's with Harry.

Harry's already quietly giggling beside him, dimples caving in his cheeks in a blindingly luminous grin. "Always looking for their  _necks_  victim."

Laughter trembles throughout his body as he covers his mouth with the back of his hand, ducking his head as he shoves Harry with the other hand. "God, Harry, shut  _up_  -"

"Pain in the  _neck_  -"

"Mr. Tomlinson and Mr. Styles, is there something you'd like to share with the rest of us? Since you seem to be having a grand time without us," their teacher says from the front, an eyebrow quirked.

Usually, Louis would pipe down and straighten his back and face immediately, like a soldier would, but the smile remains on his face, splitting into his lips and breaking the skin. The alabaster whites of his eyes are out of sight, the raven blackness of his eyelashes only visible now, but he shakes his head, chestnut hair glinting in the gloomy morning light. "No. Sorry."

It takes more effort to flatten out his face than he originally thought, but every glance at Harry makes it increasingly more difficult. He smiles and smiles and smiles until he feels as though his face will crack like fine china broken on a tiled floor. He smiles like he hasn't done so in centuries, finding that he can't stop. Harry's eyes are luminous and intense where they're trained on the stretch of his lips, his own grin imprinting in his face because  _he_  made him smile like that. It shouldn't feel like an accomplishment, what with how long they've been friends, but he's deciding to be honest now, and it's always been an accomplishment. Just a snort from Louis is worth putting on his resume and his college applications.

It's a start.

.     .     .

Noon rolls along with the clouds, the sky clearing up a bit after a long, shadowed day. They're in the chemistry class, packing up their bags before the bell can ring to release them to their next set of creative classes - dance for Louis and band for Harry. Since the start of that class, the contemplation on where Louis should ask him to come to the separate studio he practices in with him, and it's not that he's afraid of rejection and whatnot - it's the fact that he's asking at all.  _It's a start, remember? It's a start, tying him into your routine as best as you can so maybe you lot can regulate what you had before, even a little. It's a start._  He lets it out of his mouth before he can change his mind just as the bell rings and Harry stands, "Do you wanna come to the studio with me? I mean - I don't practice in this studio because I try to isolate myself as best as I can when I have solos so -"

"Yeah, 'course. Band practice is shit, anyways; we can never get anything done without messing about. Maybe we can see to Liam during lunch? You know, together," says Harry, leaning on his desk. He looks intimidating this way, hovering over him with broad shoulders and long, luscious hair hanging over his face and a bit of his shoulders.

 _He looks like he could eat me alive, a full bodied blanket with no start or ending points. He looks like he could swallow me whole and get me lost in him for eternity._  "Yeah. Together," he mumbles, losing train of thought of whatever biting response he'd had before.

"We can drive in my car, too, you know, but it has only has one headlight working, so I dunno...if you wanna take your own car, that's, like, up to you, but -"

"We can take your car - I know it only has one headlight working, Harry. It's been four months, not four years," Louis mutters, zipping up his bag and standing a bit too close to Harry's face for his comfort, catching a swift whiff of whatever fragrance he's got on.  _It hasn't been four years, or four decades even, but it feels like it. Feels like he's been gone for just that long, maybe even longer._  "We can go now, yeah? And maybe we'll catch some lunch afterwards, you know, for you."

"No, I'm good. We can grab something to eat, but I'm not feeling particularly hungry today, you know? 'S just one of those days," says Harry, walking alongside him and looking down at him as his long legs move in matching motions with his short ones. It doesn't make Louis angry, their height difference (why would it?); it makes him flush profoundly, makes him want to walk on his tiptoes just to be on the same level.

He nods, rubbing at his face like it'll make the rose tint coloring his cheeks go away. Harry is staring at him like he's a sapphire discovered in a darkened cave, like he's the most precious thing in every universe and galaxy; he can feel it pressing hot imprints into his mind, body, and numb spirit. His irises are no longer green, but a gentle olive green. (Truth be told, Louis hasn't been given this much attention in so long; so he's blushing like mad, sue him.) "Yeah, just one of those days."

They make their way into the student parking lot, and when Louis catches sight of the century-old car, memories bombard him - heated nights in the backseat with hands pressed to fogged up windows and bodies folded in compromising positions; sitting idly in a shaded parking space, sipping on beer and letting their nostalgia fall out between their alcohol-stained lips; the broken passenger seat Harry had tried to fix for Louis on the side of the highway, tugging on it until it gave way completely and Louis had to sit with his back against the door for the rest of the car ride. It blacks his eyesight out for a moment before he returns to reality again and curls his fingers around the rusty handle reluctantly. It feels as though the ground has given way for him and the amount of repressed memories he's harbored for so long.

Harry leans in from the driver's seat, looking concerned as per usual. "Is there something wrong? You gonna get in?"

 _When these memories let me breathe, then yeah, I'll get it in. Just give me a second._  "Sorry, I was just...you know, thinking. Yeah, I'll get in. I'm getting in." He pulls at the handle and drops himself in the seat, shutting and locking the door behind him before he can somehow convince himself that this is a bad idea. Because it's not - he wants to be on the same page with Harry again, be friends with him again. He really does, but whenever he thinks back to what they had and what they could've been having, it breaks his reserve down more and more.  _Stop thinking. Just stop thinking._

Harry almost wants to pull the  _Tell me about yourself_  card as they ride down the road with Louis gently giving him directions, keeping his eyes trained on the white rectangles lining the road as they pass them by, lips moving wordlessly.  _He's counting them_ , he thinks with a small grin. He almost feels obligated to apologize again, even though he's long figured out that a five lettered word doesn't recant words that have been spoken, have ridden along the wavelengths of his voice. He says it anyway, though, because it sits heavy on his chest now, like a trunk full of all of his regrets and broken promises. "I'm sorry," he whispers, audibly. "It doesn't fix this, but I'm sorry."

Louis says nothing, pressing his lips together in a tight line, his self-restraint acting as an adhesive to the words unspoken. "It's the building over here. Turn right."

The building looks as if it hasn't been used in a decade at best, all crumbling bricks and unclean windows, grime caking the edges. The parking lot is vacant, which comes as no surprise to Harry, but he frowns. "How do you even - how do you manage to get in here? It looks abandoned."

Louis slips out of the car and gaits to the front door, sticking his hand in a potted plant sitting by it. The key he pulls out from the soil glints in the sunlight, face squinted in knowing and amusement. "Right," Harry murmurs, more to himself.

Together they walk down hallways coated with a layer of seemingly never-ending dust particles. There's stray scraps of debris lining the edges of the hallways, porcelain lace curtains torn and stabbed with the shard of age and lack of care, the tan film staining the walls giving the entire place a grimy, unclean feeling. They come to a stop and enter a room that doesn't even look like it's a part of the same building, its wooden floors polished and free of dust, not a single speck of dirt on the mirrors, as far as Harry can see. He pulls up a creaking wooden chair sitting up against the wall, dropping himself down on it and letting his eyes wander. "Are we even in the same building anymore? What happened with the old studio you used to practice at? What, you got bored with it or something?" he jokes, grinning at him a bit.

Louis glances at him through the mirror, the benighted look in his eyes speaking more volumes than his voice could ever hold. Wrapping his hands around the bar, he begins to stretch, eyes directed elsewhere now. "About three months ago, I'd been hungry since then, and my mom - she was out on a date night with Dan and I didn't want to call her and ruin their entire night by asking for blood. So I thought that a bit of practicing would get my mind off of it. The janitor just caught me off guard. He was, like, almost never there, but I couldn't help myself. Went in for the kill and - that was that. That was maybe the fourth time that'd happened there, and the owner just shut it down and boarded it up. Thought there was some ghost in there doing it."

It's nothing completely out of the ordinary from what he's heard from him before, what with his stories of finding stray animals in alleys and sucking them dry, returning people's dead animals back on their porches in a twisted form of humor. (Harry himself can't even find it completely out of the ordinary because he's been there several times before, going so long without blood until he couldn't control himself and sucked blood from the closest throat he could get his hands around.) Somehow, it still manages to shock Harry to a degree of discomfort, forgetting that Louis could somehow manage to be that cruel. "Crazy how it can grab a hold of people like that, you know. Even people with the best intentions on the planet, people with the happiest thoughts. Crazy."

Louis wordlessly nods, squatting down in front of a stereo sat on the floor, pressing a disk into the slot and pressing the  _STOP_  button. Sighing, he pulls everything out and begins the grueling process of slipping his pointe shoes on.

Harry watches him, green tracing the movements of his golden hands, forever entranced by the process even though it's not much. He snorts a chuckle at a memory. "Remember when you thought you didn't need rosin, and you ended up slipping and breaking your ankle? You were on  _fire_. Almost hit me in the face when I tried to help you. Dunno why you were to angry at  _me_  when I was the one who told you to put it on."

Louis stands and shrugs his shoulders, dipping his feet in the platter of bone-white rosin to the side. He's trying his best not to smile. "I was in shock, I thought I broke my whole  _leg_. Was the first time that happened, I didn't really expect to break anything when I was only doing that for fun. It hurt like hell, though. It hurt like hell."

 _"Har-Harry, I'm never gonna dance again! I broke my leg and they won't be able to fix it - I'm never gonna dance again!"_  Harry mimics in his best high pitched, Northern accent through gasping laughter.  _"Call the cops -!"_

Louis rolls his eyes like he's agitated, but in truth, he's more endeared than he is annoyed. He turns to him, mirth in his eyes and smile. "Oh, ha ha ha. So would now be a bad time to bring up the time you nearly broke your knee roller skating down that hill? I think now is a perfectly good time to bring it up -"

"You dared me, though! You know how that always goes - you ask me to do something, I'm bound to do it," Harry argues, receiving a granola bar from his bag and unwrapping it.

 _I asked you to leave me alone, too, but I guess that only applies to certain things._  Louis pauses.  _I need to stop doing this._  "Hey, hey! No eating in here! What if I'm doing pirouette, and I slip on a crumb?"

Harry raises his eyebrows, exposed granola bar hovering over his open mouth. "From all the way over here?" He sinks his teeth into the bar, crumbs sprinkling all over himself and snowballing into his lap as he chews, obnoxiously so. His smirk around the bar is undeniable.

Louis squints at him, poking his tongue at his cheek as he kneels down beside the stereo, his blunt fingernails tracing the embroidered letters on the  _PLAY_  button while the other jumps track after track. "You were never this mean to me back then."

Harry shrugs and takes another bite of his granola.  _Bastard_. "So what song are you supposed to be practicing with? Zayn told me you had a solo this concert, and I'd ask if you're nervous, but I know you, so."

" _Wonderland_  by Taylor Swift. Real Christmas-y-sounding stuff," Louis answers before backtracking his words and turning to him, looking him hard in the eye. "Since when has Zayn started talking to  _you_  about me?"

"Since we, uh. You know. Broke it off and called it quits."

 _Since_  I  _broke it off and called it quits, you mean?_  Louis wishes he could wash down the bitter aftertaste of the past with the sickly sweetness of the present, wishes his mind could just erase the past four months he'd spent sulking and looking at everyone with narrowed eyebrows and revengeful eyes in favor of the here and now, where he can actually stand to look at Harry and not feel rage coming over him like a fever he can't sweat out. But he tilts his head back in a small nod, like it's all he has to say, words clutching his throat in a fiery hot grip. "Huh."

Harry tilts his head to the side, peering at him with eyes glittering in the dimness, gaze cascading over the curve of his back to the soft swoop of his head around his head to his sharp and gentle profile to the thickness of his eyelashes fanning out across his cheekbones as he blinks. It feels like he's in a time wrap whenever he watches Louis in the silent stillness, sitting and admiring him from close or afar.  _God_ , he's missed him. "Maybe you should forget about practicing today," the words leave him before he can process them completely.

Louis snorts, nose crinkling up on his face in protest. "With the concert night coming up in a few weeks? I don't think so."

"Y'already work yourself half to death just  _prepping_  - I think maybe you should cut yourself a bit of a break this time. Just this once."

Louis turns to him with a small frown, eyes curious. "What are you on about, Harry?"

Harry's got a look on his face like he can't fathom with the thought of looking away from him for more than one second. Louis wants to hate it, wants to tell him to look away because they just got back into this today, but his heart somersaults in his chest fifty times over, twisting and turning absurdly. "Dance with me."

Louis swallows. "To what?"

"Oh. Um. Yeah." With jerky motions, as if he wasn't expecting Louis to respond much less acknowledge him, he slips his phone out of his pocket. "There's this song that makes me think of you sometimes. I dunno, you might know it. 'S kinda sad." He sets his phone down on his chair before stepping within close proximity to Louis as the gentle, haunting lull of a woman's voice filters throughout the room, filling it to the brim with melancholy.

Eyes closed as he clutches Harry's right shoulder, it comes over him that yeah, he does know this song. The chilling melody is still fresh in his mind, as it always is, lyrics heavy with revelations and guilt. Pressing his mouth into his collarbones, he sighs heavily like his lungs are too big for his rib cage, flashbacks making his knees knock together a bit. "You're a right arsehole for this," he whispers into his skin. "Proper arsehole."

They begin to sway this way and that to the tempo as Harry nods against his head. "'S your favorite song, isn't it? That time at the tree house, when you were sitting there listening to it for hours and you wouldn't talk to me. Irked the hell out of me, but I knew why. I left it alone, left  _you_  alone. Those were some pretty heavy times for the both of us."

Tears swell in Louis' eyes, a rush of emotions carding through him abruptly. He wishes Harry never knew him as well as he did, as well as he  _does_. Silence and stillness hold them both captive, fingers twisting into fabric and skin, soul to soul and heart to heart. Time standing still for as quick as lightening flashes across the sky in storms, and then his mouth is opening, using his breath to sound words he never wanted to release. "It was never just fun for me. It was never that. I knew what I was getting into when I started that with you, and I wanted it more than anything because my actions spoke what my own mouth couldn't. I wanted you more than anything," he whispers, and it's like some ancient ghoul lets loose inside of him, freeing itself through Louis' chest and letting him breathe for the first time in months. "I wanted you more than anything, Harry."

Harry clasps his hand in an iron grip, like he's a balloon he's trying to prevent from floating away. "I made a mistake. I was - I wasn't thinking and I made a stupid mistake and I don't know how I can make us like we were before. Saying sorry doesn't patch up open wounds." Eyelids closed, he presses his chin into the side of his head, inhaling his scent. "I don't know what we're gonna do."

_And the arms of the ocean so sweet and so cold, and all this devotion I never knew at all. And the crashes are heaven for a sinner released. And the arms of the ocean delivered me._

.     .     .

The glass on Liam's door is cold to the touch where Louis raps his knuckles against it, intricate designs scattered across the obscured and blurred door, contrasting greatly to the dark wood surrounding the glass. He steps back and awaits an answer, bumping into Harry and stepping on his foot. They mumble apologies, their blushes not fading from their cheeks from earlier in the studio.  _It was just a kiss. It was just a stupid kiss._  The thought still makes his chest ache with the realness of it. It was a kiss that never should've happened to begin with -

The lock clicks, and the door is left ajar, ominously so. Louis rolls his eyes and steps in, the back of the door knocking Liam in the head as he howls. Louis pokes his head behind the door and grins slightly. "Of course I can leave it to you to be as dramatic as this."

Liam rubs his palm against his forehead with a grimace, glaring up at him. "I had to drag myself from the couch to here, Lou; it  _hurts_. You can't tell me the story of how much it hurt after you first drank blood from your fangs has suddenly slipped your mind! It's not every day that I grow horse legs!"

Louis rolls his eyes again, pressing his palm to Liam's forehead and shoving his head back as he walks all the way in. He almost forgets that Harry is behind him until Liam grips his calf and gazes up at him with eyes of disbelief. "What's this? I never thought I'd see you guys in the same room ever - willing, at that!" He smirks gradually. "What, did you kiss and make up then?"

Harry wrinkles his nose and lifts one shoulder in a seemingly nonchalant shrug, but the word  _kiss_  still makes his heart race unreasonably fast. He crosses his arms and drops his head. "No, we're just - we've decided to be friends again. Start over. But anyway, we came here to check on you and stuff. The lads told me to give you the best of luck and practice isn't quite the same these days."

"And Zayn misses you  _loads_ , Liam. His ears get all perky whenever I speak your name, you know," says Louis with a smirk, voice dripping with knowing and mirth. "If he didn't have his tail tucked in his pants all the time, I'm pretty sure he would've been wagging it every time I spoke it."

Liam frowns and flushes, setting his gaze on the dark dots in the hardwood floor. "I'm not telling him. And, like, even if we do start dating, it wouldn't last very long once he sees my legs. God, he'll think I'm such a -"

"Don't - don't say that. Whatever you're about to say, don't say it, because that's not what you are. Y'gotta quit putting yourself down, mate. 'S depressing, and it's not good for you. We're all the same, yeah? I mean, Niall is part-unicorn, and he thinks his horn is the coolest thing to ever grace this earth," Louis declares, poking his index finger into the center of his forehead. "He's a werewolf, in case you forgot, which I know you didn't because you never forget anything Zayn tells you. He won't think you're strange or hideous or whatever. Again, he's a  _werewolf_  -"

"And  _you're_  a vampire," Liam retorts, poking him in the stomach and causing him to squeak. "And Harry, he's -"

"Harry. Harry is just Harry," Harry mumbles, flicking him in the nose with wide eyes.

"Right," Liam says slowly, rubbing his nose. "But you guys - you and Zayn and Niall - you're all things people have heard of, things people at least remotely like and, if anything, fetishize. Nobody has a centaur kink, nobody thinks horse legs are -  _sexy_ , like they do with vampire fangs -"

"Who cares what they think? Honestly, who cares what people think? Just do  _you_ , mate. You do you, yeah?" Louis says, tapping him on his nose. "So how are ya? Y'need us to baby you and bring you a nice, hot bowl of chicken noodle soup or what?"

"Some soup would be nice. And maybe someone could help me to back to the den - I kinda dragged myself all the way over here and now I have rug burn," Liam elaborates as Harry scoops him up from the floor in the foyer, arms hooked beneath his horse legs. He winces, face twitching in minimal pain as he's carried back to the common room and sat on the couch, his blankets being tossed over his lower half on Harry's doing.

"Just centaur things," Louis calls from the kitchen, pressing a palm on the counter and standing on his tiptoes as he opens a cabinet in search of said soup. As a matter of fact, the can of soup is so far out of reach that he has to jump just catch sight of it. He huffs, opting to climb on the counter instead. "Who even puts cans on a shelf this bloody high?" he grumbles.

"Y'need help?"

Louis is startled by Harry's unexpected and unheard presence behind him, and he jumps a bit too high, slipping of the counter and landing in Harry's ready arms, biceps flexing against his back. He grunts as he falls back against him, his own arm tossing itself around his shoulder's and fingers latching onto his neck. And suddenly, their faces are a bit too close for comfort, breaths mingling and puffing against each other's lips. Harry curls his arm beneath Louis' legs, eyes wandering his. "You okay?" he breathes,  _whispers_ , even.

Louis blinks owlishly, and as quick as lightning strikes, he releases Harry's neck and lets himself down, toes curling and uncurling in their socks as his feet touch the floor. "Could you, um. Get that can for me? I was gonna grab it, but you - did that."

Harry nods, jerkily so, as he reaches up and nabs the can from the top shelf with ease. Louis wants to hate him for it, but the absurd blush staining his cheeks is preventing him from doing much else, the color of green imprinted in his eyelids every time he blinks now. "Yeah," Harry breathes, handing the can to him like a peace offering. "Sorry."

Despite Louis' better judgement, he looks up in his eyes again, the color of his eyes are an adhesive so undeniable and unbeatable that Louis thinks they might be his eye color now. Clearing his throat, he takes the can, managing to do so without brushing their hands as he calls out to Liam. "Is this the only can of soup you've got, Liam? How long has this thing been in here?" he asks, peeling the top back and reaching for a bowl from the dish washer. He's jittery in his actions because Harry is still there, leaning against the counter and watching him with unexplained intent.

Liam is opening his mouth to reply with something just as snarky when the doorbell rings. He frowns, narrowing his eyebrows. "Could one of you get that?"

"I'll get it," Louis says swiftly because he needs to get out, needs some space, Harry's eyes smothering him breathless and taking up the whole room. Wiping the sweat that coats his palms off on his jeans, he unlocks and opens the door, surprise sprinting over his face as he finds Zayn standing on the porch, a frown on his face, scarf wrapped around his neck. He's tempted to tell him to go back to school and shut the door in his face, but he smiles tightly instead and steps out, shutting the door behind him. "Hey!"

Zayn quirks an eyebrow. "Hey...that's Harry's car in the driveway, if my memory serves me right."

Louis rolls his eyes. "I'll tell you about it later. So. What are you doing here? You should be at school in chorus by now, you know."

Zayn frowns again, trying to side-step him, but Louis is quick to get in his way, his body blocking the doorknob. "Yeah, I know, but I came to check on Liam. You know, seeing as I haven't spoken to him in the past several days and I miss him? What's going on?"

Louis' voice jumps in pitch, the way it does when he's lying and trying his best to come up with the best plausible story. "What? Nothing! Nothing's going on. It's just - the place is a bit of a mess and you know how Liam feels about his place being a mess when people come over," he elaborates, raising a shoulder in a shrug like it explains everything.

Zayn snorts. "Okay? I'm his friend, just like you and Harry are."

"Yeah but you're Zayn. You know how he is with you. He puts you first. And I mean, really, when's the last time you came over here and the place was messy? Right, never. And Liam is poorly, on top of that. So just - let us clean up a bit and then we'll let you in. Won't even take longer than a second, yeah?"

Zayn shoves his shoulder, a bit too rough for it to be considered friendly, but he smiles nonetheless. "Better not. 'M freezing."

Louis nods slowly, reaching behind him and turning the doorknob. "Right. Right." Swiftly, he steps back inside, cheeks rosy from being exposed to the cold as he fills them with air before releasing it in a sigh. "Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy."

Harry, bless him, pokes his head from the kitchen, concern written on his face like ink on parchment. "Who was it?"

"Zayn. It was Zayn and I told him we would let him in, but now we need to figure out a way how to  _not_  let him in and I kind of screwed up Part B of Plan A so. Any other ideas?" Louis rambles, twisting his fingers.

Harry's eyes are wild with trying to figure out what the next step should be, darting from his face to the wall beside him until he snaps his fingers. "Humus! Crackers and humus. We can invite him in for a snack and say that Liam got picked up or something." He doesn't wait for a response or a noise of agreement before he's already moving.

"From the backdoor?" Louis asks, although he's walking into the kitchen and open the pantry door, grabbing the saltine crackers and spotting the jar of humus...on the top shelf. "Liam, what the  _fuck_." Grumbling, he mounts the shelves, stretching above because the jar is  _just_  within his reach until he feels hands, warm and firm, pressing into his sides and holding him up. He sighs and slumps his shoulders, grabbing the jar and really just wanting to stay there and maybe lie on the floor long enough for him to think clearly.

"Do you have it?" Harry asks from below, quietly like he's afraid he might startle him.

Louis nods. "Yeah, I have it." He glances behind him and quirks an eyebrow. "You wanna let me down?"

Harry grins back, eyes sparkling like midnight stars. "No, not at all."

Louis huffs and squirms before Harry tightens his grip and sets him down like a parent would to their child. Louis turns around, against his better judgement because he can feel what's waiting for him, and there Harry is, solid and firm in front of him, shoulders broad and body tall. Louis glares up at him, eyes narrowed. "You wanna give me my space?"

Harry hasn't stopped grinning. "No, not at all," he repeats.

Louis pinches his side, forcing him out of the way and setting the jar in the middle of the table. "I haven't a clue why you're so persistent on wasting time -" And a moment too late, he turns around and finds Zayn standing in the hallway, eyes trained on whatever's in the common room with his impressive jaw dropped. His shoulders slump for what feels like one hundredth time that day. "Shit."

Harry swallows heavily. "Um."

Louis moves to miniature window above the kitchen sink, watching as Liam smiles, albeit weakly and waves a hand. "Surprise...?" Louis only wants to begin to imagine the look on Zayn's face.

" _Seriously_ , Liam," Zayn says from the hallway, his voice travelling farther away from Louis and Harry and closer to the common room. It's more of a statement than a question. " _Really_ , Liam."

Louis tugs at Harry's bicep, pulling him until they reach the foyer and slip their shoes back on. "Well, you guys - do whatever you're doing here! Me and Harry are gonna jet, you know, missing out on lunch and all. Take care, the both of you!" he rambles, fumbling with his winter wear before tossing everything on and stumbling out of the doorway.

He power-walks to the passenger side of the car, messing about with his mittens and beanie. "Zayn is  _really_  gonna tear me a new asshole when he sees me again, I just know it." He looks up as he slips his beanie on and smirks at Harry where he still stands at the door, his eyes wide with questions with no answers and wonder. "You wanna go out for ice cream?"

Harry grins.

.     .     .

"So," Louis murmurs around a spoonful of chocolate mint ice cream, eyes mischievous, "let's catch up, shall we? It may have been four months, but a lot can happen in four months. A lot can happen in four  _days_  even, but. You know."

Harry dips his spoon in his sundae for another scoop with a nod, lips plump from the frigid weather and cheeks lovely and rosy. Louis tilts his head to the side with a minute smile. There's something about Harry in this weather, in this  _season_ , that makes him look especially ethereal and sweet. "Yep," he replies, popping the 'p'.

Louis pauses, gazing at the way his chestnut curls frame his angular face, the way his eyes, sharp and bright at any time of the day, soften and dim under the pallid clouds, eyelashes dark in contrast to his skin. He swallows, throat dry suddenly. "Did you miss me at all?" he whispers, although he tries not to because it's not a secret.  _It feels like one, though. Just letting him know that I wondered about it makes it feel like a secret._

Harry isn't looking up, but his cheeks flush further. "Of course I did. I missed how you  _were_  with me. It wasn't fun at all, being that way with you at the beginning of the semester. That sucked. It was weird the first time around because I'm so used to laughing with you and it was so clear that you were being serious about it."

Louis frowns, fingers numbing uncomfortably as he swirls his ice cream about. "I never - I didn't mean any of it. It never meant anything to me. I was just in a lot of pain, and I know you know that when somebody puts me in pain, they're the first and kind of the only person I take it out on. I was mad, but I suppose I was more upset than I was angry. I just - didn't understand why, or  _how_ , you could do that. To  _me_ ," he admits breathlessly, not being able to bring himself to look back up. "I missed you."

Harry nods again, Louis catches the gesture through his peripheral vision and he's nearly worried that if he nod anymore, then his head will fall right off of his neck. He sniffs, rubbing the tip of his nose and laughing silently. "It messed you up that much, huh?" he shudders against the mild breeze and sighs. "I fucked up."

Louis shrugs and wrinkles his nose briefly like the amount of self-deprecating they've been doing for the past few hours has left a sour taste in his mouth and the aftertaste is doing a bitter dance across his tongue. "We should just - forget about it ever happening. You know, it was just a kiss," and he can tell he's talking more to himself than he is to Harry. "I know why it hurt so much, hearing about you doing it and then  _catching_  you doing it. I had it in my head that we were together and that we were official, and we weren't. Respectively, you were free to kiss anybody you wanted and so was I, but it never felt right kissing anybody else, I'd never. I never kissed anybody else when I was with you because just the thought of doing it with anyone else felt so wrong - sometimes it made me physically ill just thinking about myself holding hands with someone who wasn't you, kissing someone who wasn't you, being intimate with someone who wasn't you. We fit, you know? We just fit."

"Louis?"

Louis twists his fingers together, too nervous to look up, but Harry always has his attention. He sort of wants to cry because he broke his own barriers down completely and wholly, letting himself  _feel_  for the first time in months and he just wants to have a full strop right now. He shudders, eyes brimming with tears, eyelashes thickening with the wetness from them. "Yeah?"

"Maybe we should skip today," he murmurs, and Louis carries his eyes up at that, surveying the open and honest expression on his face and it chills him to the bone, sending goosebumps up his warm arms. He nods solemnly, standing with him and latching onto his waist to his body's own accord. He doesn't protest, and Harry doesn't tense against him. It's a good sign, all things considered.

.     .     .

The car ride in the wretched thing Harry calls a car is comfortably silent, and Louis mostly wants to hold his hand the whole time, wants to touch him and not let a sliver of space come between them again because every bit of air that fits between them reminds him of how much regret and hatred he'd held in his heart all those longs months. Crisply-painted houses with lanterns shining dimly on their porches flit past him swiftly and he opens his mouth again because for whatever reason, his brain doesn't want him to stop talking. "Are you sorry for it? For doing it?" he speaks louder, and, this time around, he's sure of himself and what he wants and which path he chooses to walk down.

Harry's hands, pale and drawn in contrast to the leather steering wheel, loosen their hold and his shoulders slump like he was expecting to be reminded of his wrongs, as if he doesn't wrack his brain over it every day. "God, of course I'm sorry. I know - I know it might not even mean anything by now because I've waited way too long to say something about it. Then again, I know how you are about apologies and giving second chances and I thought that trying to bother with it would be a waste of air. But you deserved to know that much, that I didn't  _want_  to be with anybody else but you. I never did, not even when I was locking lips with someone else. You were - and still are - always in the back of my mind, more of a forethought than an afterthought." He pauses, pulling to the side of the road in front of an old house, baby blue paint weathered and chipped from natural causes, a broken lantern hovering above the porch that has a rocking chair with one half of the legs missing.

Harry turns to him, eyes steady and  _open_ , like a field of untended grass that lasts for miles. "I never doubted what I felt about you. Maybe - maybe that's not what you want to hear, but I'm letting you know. I knew what I wanted from you, what I wanted with you, and I could never pull the right words from my mouth. We were both coming from some pretty messed up places in our heads, so maybe we were never ready to give each other the green light because we were still treading water with ourselves. But we have now to start over, don't we? We can figure it out again, with fresh hearts and a clear conscience, yeah?"

Louis blinks slowly, eyelashes fanning out against his cheekbones before he opens his eyes into Harry's again and he really wants more than anything to kiss him again. His lips burn with the reminiscent taste of Harry's, bruised and swollen simply from the memory of crawling into the driver's seat and kissing him dizzy. He nods mechanically, head snapping up and down. "Yeah. With fresh hearts and a clear conscience."

Harry smiles the most genuine one yet today, eyes crinkling and dimples diving in his winter-stained cheeks. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth, eyebrows arching in eagerness. "C'mon then."

Louis wills his legs, trembling with veins taut inside them, to step outside the car and stand still for him long enough to steady himself. Leaning against the roof of the car, he recognizes the place immediately as Harry's childhood home, knows the dent in the ground is from when he and Harry sat in the yard, digging up a hole just to see how far they could get. They promptly got yelled at, but they conveniently never got around to filling it back up. And the red flags littering the lawn is actually Louis' entire fault because he took to collecting the red markers on the side of the road as a hobby, and stuck them all in the ground in front of the house, claiming that it made the whole place look infinitely better. He smiles at the memory of Harry's expression, gleeful and bright as could be.

Harry opens the rusted gate, walking along the cobblestone path leading to the backyard. He glances back, hand on the gate handle. "Are you coming?"

Louis pauses and nods, jerkily, forcing his legs to walk and follow him as he shoves his hands in his coat pockets. "'Course."

The soil gives beneath their feet as it makes gentle, squishing noises, moist with the rain from that morning. The day is still well into the afternoon now, but the sky stains itself aegan among the horizon like it's nearly nighttime. There's a bit of space between the house and the army of oak trees behind it, aged hay littering the ground along with dead grass. Louis frowns and shudders. "What are we doing back here?"

"Um," Harry hums and actually  _drops to his knees_  like it's not close to forty degrees, and like the ground is perfectly dry and absolutely will not soak through his trousers. He sinks his fingers in the soil and starts digging, and all Louis can do is gape at him from where he stands. He almost wants to tell him that he doesn't have to go to such lengths to beg for his forgiveness because he's long since been forgiven. "I'm looking for something. Well. Some _things._ "

He's mad out of his mind, doing this now, of all times. "What is it that can't wait until the weather is a bit warmer and the sun is actually out?" he asks, nearly squeaking.

"Remember how I met you?" Harry asks, flinging soil behind his back and hoping Louis isn't anywhere in the line of fire.

Louis sighs airily and nods, walking forward and kneeling down beside him. "Oh, yeah. That was most likely the oddest way anyone has ever met anybody."

There's a system with non-human newborns, specifically vampires: Once the mother gives birth, the baby's blood is tested to see if it's a "normal" baby or a baby born "out of standards." Anyone will argue that it happens with all 'abnormal' children, but Louis knows different. If the test comes out O.O.S., the baby is then taken from its mother, wrapped up, placed in a coffin that grows as long as their body does, and then promptly buried. It's more than common for vampire families to be separated, and also more than common that the birth mother will never see more than one of her own children.

Louis chalks it up to fate the night Harry discovered his coffin and opened it up, eyes wide and wonder struck, curls damp with rain. "The look on your face was the thing that made me laugh for the very first time. It sounded like nails scratching on Styrofoam, to be honest," he chuckles. "Your little ' _oops_!'"

"And your little ' _hi_!'" Harry laughs a long with him until his knuckles bump against something wooden and rough. Effortlessly, he curls fingers around the side of the box, freeing it from the slick earth and brushing it off. His fingertips stumble against the embossed initials of his name, the cylindrical shaped box decaying and roughened with erosion. He turns and sits on his bum, wrinkling his nose at the wetness before revealing it to Louis. "I was looking for  _this_  that night. I was like, five years old. Maybe four. I wasn't even allowed back here without supervision, so you can imagine how angry she was with me when you went to bed. But - I was looking for this. Here, open it," he requests, handing the box to him with mud-caked hands.

Louis looks at it like he's expecting for something to happen to it before he seats himself beside him, fitting in his side snugly like a magnet with its opposite pole. He takes it gingerly, unlocking the latch and peeling the top back to find - seashells. Seashells of all colors - sapphire and peach and macaroon. He narrows his eyebrows. "You kept a box of seashells?"

Harry nods, shuffling through them with his index finger. "My favorite ones. We were supposed to be going to my nan's beach house the day after, but I found you, so. It was all in vain. I never did go back to find it, but now that we're starting over...I want you to have it," he murmurs, gazing into Louis' eyes as it starts to drizzle again.

Louis blinks, shaking his head before he's made a clear decision with himself. "Oh no, no no no, Harry, I couldn't take this. Your grandmother died earlier this year and I know how much she meant to you, I really couldn't take this -"

"I  _want_  you to have it, Louis. I do. She meant a lot to me, but I have other things to remember her by, you know? And that box - that's why we met. Thinking of that box was a beacon of hope for me. It was the reason why I started looking at things at a new angle and stopped being a self-pitying wanker, you know? We can start again. I can't take back what I did, and we can't take back what we said to each other, but we can try again." Harry swallows, eyes flitting over his face like he's doing his best to memorize every detail. "So take it. Please."

The moment feels too exposed and raw for it to happen where they sit surrounded by mud and the scent of old earth, but Louis nods slow and sure and never takes his eyes off of Harry's, even when he closes the latch and places the box in his coat pocket, safe and secure in the warmth of his hand. "Okay. Okay."

The streetlights flash on, its alabaster brightness cracking the moment by the edges as it startles them with its sudden persistent presence. Harry blinks and glances up at the sky, darkened by storm clouds and claps of thunder and glimpses of lightning. "It's going to storm soon. Maybe we should just head home. I'll walk you to your place just to prolong my inevitable doom," he teases himself airily, gazing back at him with his eyes as open and honest as when they arrived there, still as open and honest as when they sat at the table outside the ice cream parlor, still as open and honest from when they first met each other's mouths.

Louis doesn't speak for a long while, staring at the fleshy plumpness of his lips and trying to figure out a way to go about asking for what he's been wanting for what feels like forever. "I'd like to - I want to kiss you now." He swallows and continues because now the words are out and he's running a track race where the hurdles are ten feet taller than him, but he's willing to jump over every single one of them to reach the finish line. "I've missed feeling your lips on mine, I've missed feeling your warmth, and - I've just  _missed you_  so much and I don't want to think about what you did anymore, you know? I don't care, I just want to start a new book on a fresh page. You know, fresh hearts and a clear conscience -"

Harry tilts his head to the side and lets their mouths mesh together in a firm but chaste kiss, eyes falling close as much as he wants to keep them open to see the expression of bewilderment on Louis' face. It's like some sort of narcotic, Louis' lips, because as thin as they are, they fulfill everything he's ever needed, everything he's ever  _wanted_ , whether it was a peck or raunchy kiss. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth and gives it a careful tug, running his tongue along the edge of it.

Louis is immobilized, limbs paralyzed where his hands clutch fists full of his coat hem and his thighs lock up, muscles taut and tight as he closes his thighs shut like a locker. But - Harry's hands are so warm where they slide up the side of his neck and his tongue is hot where it glides across his lip, back and forth, back and forth, and his hair is curling around his face like fog. On impulse, very sudden impulse, Louis releases the hem of his coat and grips the hem of Harry's, pulling him closer and closer until it feels like they're flush against each other and then they're tumbling over, Louis' short and full body splayed on top of Harry's long and lithe body. Their lips never separate in the momentary debacle, like they're too stubborn to ever part.

Louis shoves his palms to the warm, wet earth beneath them, pulling back as the streetlights cast luminous lights over their profiles, and it's possible that Harry looks beautiful everywhere, in every light, at every angle, at every second, minute, and hour. He moves to straddle him properly, but Harry's hands are gripping his thighs and pulling him until he's on his back, legs loosely wrapped around his waist and body molding the soil he lies on. He's positive that there's mud everywhere now, seeping into uncomfortable places and strange crevices, but Harry's eyes, blazing through shadows of raindrops, distract him just as easily. Tilting his head back, he inspects the sky, blotted with stone clouds and lavender strikes of lightning, midnight colors spreading across the sky like ink. "Think we should really head back home, Haz," he whispers, the nickname slipping out seamlessly. He hardly blinks. "'S mud everywhere."

Harry nods, leaning down to steal another kiss before getting on his feet and carrying him with him. It's started to rain hard now, and Harry keeps him sheltered under the lap of his coat as they run back to the car, feet splashing in puddles. All of it seems to reminiscent of the day he and Harry walked home in this  _awful_  rain - cats and dogs kind of rain - and decided to keep themselves covered in the shade of a tree, but Harry still blanketed him with his arm and his jacket. What was only ten more minutes of rainfall felt like ten hours with everything Louis told him that day.

They stumble into the car, cold leather touching even colder skin, causing Louis to shiver more noticeably than he'd like. Harry starts the engine, glancing at him through a dampened fringe like the night he'd discovered his coffin, and he grins.  _Arsehole_. "You're right out of your mind, aren't you?" Louis asks, voice cunning and sharp with no real malice behind his words.

Harry shrugs, pulling out from the side of the road. "Well, it's not all that different from when we first met, is it?"

Louis nods, leaning his head against the window and sighing, breath fogging up the window. "I suppose.... So, um, I'm just wondering...what are we doing here? What are we - I mean, I thought we were gonna start off with being friends, but I kind of messed that up back there and you know where the "no-labels-no-strings-attached" thing got us -"

"We could be dating." Harry shivers. "We could be, you know. Boyfriends." It almost feels a bit silly to say it, but the small smile that graces Louis' face as he counts the lanterns that flit past them is worth it, wholly, completely, entirely worth it.

Louis' hand finds Harry's knee to its own accord - it's like his limbs have brains and thoughts of their own now. He squeezes gently. "That can absolutely be arranged."

.     .     .

Louis stands under the shower head of Harry's bathroom, steam seeping into his pores as he lets the heated water run through the clumped strands of his hair, streams of mud running down his hips and backside and into the drain. The macaroon lights hanging over the mirror and sink, softened by the translucent glass shades, illuminate the room in a way that makes Louis want to sleep right there on the rugs as grey as the clouds in the sky.

He trains his eyes on his wiggling toes, filled with a strange, present sense of unbridled euphoria, overjoyed that the face and voice he's missed so much is his. He feels clingy in a way that makes him want to itch somewhere beneath his skin, wants to tangle fingers with Harry and clutch them tight and sleep with their hands intertwined on his chest, hovering over his lifeless heart. The water is hot and scorching against his scalp as his hair propels forward and hangs over his face, the dirt beneath his toes staining the water brown. He vaguely wonders how mud got into his shoes, but maybe it was because he was too preoccupied with the burn of Harry's mouth meeting his to notice. With a mental shrug, he leans forward and turns the faucet to  _off_.

He takes gentle care with toweling himself dry, overcome with the need to take care of himself. It feels like it's been too long since he sat himself down and released the bitter hound that sits caged in his heart. He wants to clear the darkened blots that corrupt the crevices of his mind, wants to rid himself of feeling worse for wear inside and out, wants to start loving himself like he knows he really can instead of giving himself a false version of it, serving himself fresh platters of faux vanity.

And before he can really start giving Harry every piece of him, he needs to ensure that each piece is coated with self-certainty and self-love.  _No longer can you give anyone else the power to break you except yourself._

There's a careful knock on the door and Harry's muffled voice, "You okay in there? I just called your mum, and she told me that her and Lottie were out looking for you. She sounded pretty relieved. Didn't think we'd scare her."

Louis pauses and a slow grin rises from his mouth. "You still have my mum's number?"

He can envision Harry's shrug and slight tilt of the head, the twinkle in his eyes as he stares at the sliver of light sneaking out from under the door. "I didn't really think it was over. I didn't think we were over because I knew that if I ever saw you in any form of danger and I couldn't reach you, then your mum was next option. Then maybe the police, it depends."

Louis sticks his head between his knees and squeezes them, trying to get himself to wake up from this wretchedly beautiful dream. "That's nice," he murmurs, voice just louder than a whisper and loud enough for Harry to hear through the door.

"Yeah," he breathes. "Now come out - miss your kisses already."

Louis quirks an eyebrow. "You miss my kisses and you don't miss me? I see how it is, Styles. I see exactly how it is."

Harry whines, and there's a small thump that resounds through the door. He's knocked his head against it in what sounds like a truce. Slipping on the ratty jumper he was given and pulling his boy shorts up his legs and over his privates, he opens the door and Harry almost collapses on him, though he surprisingly manages to catch them both with a hand gripping the door frame and the other gripping Louis' waist. He blinks up at his face and grins. "Sorry," he apologizes, unapologetic.

Louis puts no work in his feet to lean up and give him a fleeting kiss since the boy is already hunched over him, and he tugs at the hem of his Ramones t-shirt. "We are most definitely going to the laundromat tomorrow," he mumbles.

Harry wrinkles his nose, lips twisting against his. "Why the laundromat? We've got washing machines."

Louis shrugs, pulling away from his space and flicking the bathroom light off. He tugs him where he wants to go, which is his bedroom. "I dunno - there's something about laundromats that makes me really nostalgic. You know, me and my mum always went to them when I was smaller because she was struggling with money and couldn't afford a washing machine quite yet - or she couldn't afford to keep it running. But I spent many a night sitting in the little baskets and riding them around until the store owner told me to stop. It would just feel wrong, using the washing machine at the house. I don't like spending too much time in that house as it is. Every second that passes is just more morbid than the last when I'm there," he mumbles, seating himself on the edge of the bed and gazing around the room he hasn't seen in months.

The walls are painted a teal color, covered with a bit more posters than from before, which has Louis guessing that he went in search of new bands in his effort to start a new way of life without him. His dresser is littered with little gadgets and albums he'll never put in the stereo, his desk littered with papers from the beginning of the semester and binders, his rucksack lying astray beside his chair. The bed dips where Harry sits cross-legged beside him, knocking knees with his. Louis twists his fingers before folding his hands into fists, making it a resolution to stop with the nervous ticks. "We hardly ever talk - and I know most of all vampire families are like that, you know, us  _mysterious beings._  But I feel like a solid reminder of why we can't have normal lives, why we can't be looked at the same as people born up to standards. And my mum is probably going to try to stab me with an iron steak, so staying at yours seems more plausible. If that's okay with you."

Harry is already nodding before he can get his full explanation out, rubbing the inside of his thigh in a way that makes him twitch slightly in his pants, makes him realize that he and Harry are going to sleep in the same bed after not doing so for months, makes him want his hands in places a bit less innocent again. "Yeah, yeah, that's entirely fine with me. And my mum and Gemma are on this business trip for their makeup line for the next few days, so we won't have to worry about people walking in on us and asking us questions." He yawns and glances at the clock on his nightstand, red LEDS glaring back at him with a time dead into the night. "We should probably head to bed if we wanna go to the laundromat tomorrow, yeah?"

Louis can only half-hear what he's saying because his hands are looking promising and heavenly where his fingertips press into the fleshy warmth of his exposed thigh, veins prominent and embossed on his skin. They look promising and heavenly when they span and wrap around his thigh and  _pull_  and  _oh_ , Harry wants his attention, he wants him to listen. He blinks up at him, wondering if he was drooling at some point in that moment. "Wuh?" He's half hard, and he doesn't remember getting like that, but as long as Harry keeps his hands on him, it doesn't matter much.

"Were you...ah, were you listening to me?" Harry loosens his grip, takes note of his state and how the lights seem to dim in their favor, eyes blurring at the edges and sharpening where Louis sits in front of him. His throat is dry with the knowledge that they're going to sleep next to each other for the first time in months again, and by the way Louis is looking at him, maybe -

"Touch me," Louis breathes and takes his hand, sliding it upward, closer and closer, nearer and nearer to where he wants it, to where he  _needs_  it. "Please, I want you to - please."

Harry blinks owlishly at him, fingers curling around his upper thigh and gripping it tight like he's attempting to restraint himself and tell himself he doesn't want this as much as he does. It would make sense, wouldn't it? Not to do this tonight? Because there Louis sits, vulnerable and raw and exposed to the nerves in his fingertips, slits of moonlight crackling across his skin like glass shards. But there Louis sits, bare thighs open and eyes rampant and bright and breathing out requests to him like he knows he'll fulfill them like he wants. The only thing separating him from where he needs to be is his pants and also himself. And the smoldering heat from Louis' gaze is simmering over his skin as he opts to stare at his thigh, thick and glistening and soft, so so soft. "You - you're sure? You're absolutely sure?"

Louis answers in his motions, in the way he surges forward to slide their lips together, in the way he fits Harry's thigh between his legs and grinds down, in the way he breathes a whine into his mouth, in the way he grips his shoulders like he's hanging off the edge of a cliff and it's his only means of survival. Heat spreads through their bodies like wildfires in the summer, blazing and simmering, burning everything possible in its path, fiery sparks sent up their spines. Louis is eager for their bare skin to touch, tugging the hem of his shirt in a pleading gesture, silently asking him to be rid of it.

Harry obliges, lifting the hem of the shirt until it slips over his head and flutters down on the floor beside them. Louis sits on his thighs and presses a palm to his hardened, twitching abdomen, humming softly as his hands slides over to his bare pecs, skin smooth beneath his. His torso is farseeing and pale, save for the flush that extends from his face to the center of his chest, biceps compact and arms veiny and muscular. He wants him to hold him up against a wall, but he also wants him to just  _hold_  him, compressed and secure. He doesn't realize he's smiling. "Missed you," he whispers, cupping the side of his neck. "So much."

Harry is nearly certain he's said that a total of twenty times today, but it doesn't sink in until that very moment that Louis'  _missed_  him - it's like an anchor was thrown in the depths of a heart as dead as Louis', heavy with certainty and a word he can't put his finger on at the moment because it's bright and stained with colors of magenta and rouge. He slips his hands beneath his shirt, aiding him in tugging it over his head and tossing it in some forgotten area. He shifts them until Louis is beneath him, gentle and pliant and willing, cheeks rosy and eyes ablaze and arctic blue. He marvels at him, sitting and admiring him in his flushed, half-nude glory.

His stomach isn't as defined as Harry, but it's delicate and easy, skin giving where he presses his thumbs into it. His chest is scattered with sparse, tawny hair, and it almost makes Harry jealous that he can make it look so good, that he can have it at  _all_ , but he finds himself brushing his fingers through it and letting loose of all strands of envy. He grins at the sharp gasp that falls from Louis' lips when his thumbs brush against the nubs of his nipples - so sensitive, they are, and Harry's missed this part of his body the fifth most. Because the fourth is his neck (he mottles and blots it with hickeys in a hue of dark colors, sliding his tongue over them to sooth them and to tease), the third is his mouth (he kisses him until his lips are swollen and sore and bruised and still begging to be kissed), the second is his arse (his hands find it by themselves, giving both cheeks a generous squeeze and a single brush over his hole just hear him gasp and see him jolt), and the first is his cock (he can see the prominent shape of it where it protrudes from his pants, letting his fingertips dance over it and watching it twitch with what slight friction it was being given).

"Missed  _you_ ," he whispers, gripping his sides. " _God_ , just look at you. Let's take this off, yeah?" he asks, snapping the waistband of his pants and receiving an eager nod as an answer. He makes a show of peeling it off, slowly and deliberately until Louis whines impatiently, and then it's down around his thighs and -  _fuck_ , Louis is just beautiful all around. His cock slaps against his abdomen, flushed and blurting precome (and Harry finds it amazing how he's hardly been touched when it looks that hard), and Harry has never wanted this much in his life - it's gnawing at his insides, setting fires in his gut like an untamed arsonist with an abundance of gasoline and matches. He lifts his thighs until they're pressed against his torso, silently requesting him to hold them there. "Gonna finger you open, yeah? You okay with this?"

"Yeah, yes, yes, I'm okay with it, please," Louis rasps, his voice wavering with desperate tones, crackling with lust and also with adoration. He can't tell which one comes first because they're both in the lead. "I don't want - you don't have to put a condom on this time. I just want you, okay?"

_I just want you._

It means more than it was supposed to initially, but the weight of it settles in their guts like a thousand ships harboring fifteen elephants in each of them. Harry twitches roughly in his underwear, blunt fingernails digging into his sighs as he leans down and presses a single, wet kiss to the center of his chest. Louis shivers. It almost too much now, with what he's feeling, like he can sit teetering on the edge of the earth and be entirely fine with it as long as Harry was there in the same compromising position. His eyes are unwavering where they're trained on Harry's, sparkling in this mediocre ceiling light.

Harry leans over and opens his nightstand drawer with trembling hands, nabbing a small bottle of lube - just about half of it is used. Louis smirks but doesn't comment, doesn't want to taint the moment with biting words - the glint of his fangs, sharp and porcelain, has enough bite for the both of them. And, well, none of that matter now because Harry is slicking up the length of his fingers with intent eyes, wet noises echoing throughout the room. Slowly, he weighs down the tip of his finger to his twitching, waiting hole and pauses,  _again_ , Christ the Redeemer. "This is how you want it, right? Do you wanna - you know. Top this time?"

Louis rolls his head back on the pillow, revealing his hickey-branded neck and groaning. "No, no, no. This is how I want it, I want it just like this. Now if you could get on with it,  _please_ , Harry -"

Half of his finger sinks in as he calls his name, forcing out stuttered gasps and pleasured sighs. His hole jerks around his finger like it's forcing itself to relax, remain calm, and take it. Harry is entranced by how it moves, its dark pink tightness working and loosening around his finger and  _oh_  - now he's moving down on it, wanting more. Harry lips his cracked lips and gives him just that, pushing his finger in to the hilt and wishing he could replace it with something more fitting. He feels around his heated, slick walls and sighs because he's missed this so  _much_ , missed the way he gasps against his mouth, the way his thighs twitch and tighten against his hip when he's close, the way his toes curl when he brushes against his prostate, the way he makes those smoldering noises for  _him_  and him  _alone_. And perhaps he's a bit in the mood to brand him in every way possible tonight, sue him.

He pulses the finger in and out until he feels that he's ready for another, working him up gradually to three fingers because he knows from short experience that it's all he needs, but he also knows it's been a while. He contemplates how long he should go jabbing his prostate, contemplates on whether he wants to make him come twice tonight.  _Well, I could certainly count it as a victory in my book, making him come that many times the first night he has me back inside him -_

" _In_ , God, Harry! I'm - I'm ready now, stop bloody teasing me and put it in!" Louis whines, the muscles in his thighs pulled tense from how much he's trying to push his orgasm back. He would've done it already four months ago, let himself release all over his stomach and maybe get spanked for it, depending on Harry's mood in the moment. But none of that matters in the here and now, in this moment where every second is sweeter and sacred than the last. He curls his toes and endeavors to the best of his ability to dig his nonexistent nails in his palms, telling himself to stop thinking about it so much because he's a millimeter away from coming right there and it'd be worth it to wait, to see the look on Harry's face as he stares down at him in awe.

Chastely kissing his inner thigh and the head of his cock, he moves forth on his knees and pulls Louis further into his lap, gripping the base of his dick and holding the head of it against his anticipating hole and. And this is it. This is the start of the rest of forever for them - or for however long they last (but Harry feels it deep in his bones, can just  _see_  them in their final stage of age, tangling fingers in a weathered home where the sun has finished setting over the horizon in favor of the moon, their wedding bands sparkling in the fuscia sunlight).

The head goes in first - well,  _slips_  in, actually. Almost as if it's eager return to the place it so desperately belongs. He inches in at an agonizingly slow pace, gripping his calf like a fisher does to its rod and hissing. He forces himself to keep his eyes open to see Louis' expression because every second, every minute, every moment is not a single one wasted when he's inside Louis. Louis is one of those lovely, loud, responsive types - can wake up the neighbors down the block if you fuck him hard enough at the right angle and Harry always tries his best, wants to record him each time they fuck just compare how loud he was versus the last time.

His hole tightens and loosens, tightens and loosens, at the same pace each of their hearts jolt, as stationary as they both are every other day. Louis swallows down the clump in his throat and makes himself speak, " _Move_."

His thrusts are slow and gentle, but he's come to the conclusion that he never wants to part from Louis, physically, emotionally, mentally - whatever sliver of space that fits itself between them feels like a thousand miles to Harry, and he leans down to eliminate the distance and place his lips on top of Louis' in elongated, firm kisses. His moans echo in his mouth, sweet and abundant and begging. Flames lick along his spine at the sounds of high-pitched whines and shallow groans, an inferno in his gut, hotter and hotter with each thrust.

Louis' hands drag along his back muscles, squeezing at the little place between his shoulder blades and pulling back for a much needed breath of life and a, " _Faster, please._ "

Sweat is thin and slick where their hips meet at Harry's brutal pace, sounds of skin meeting again and again loud and pronounced in the comfort of his room and he never wants it to stop, wants to catch every single one of Louis' desperate noises in individual bottles and hang them around his room like Christmas lights. Each roll of his hips, each nudge at Louis' prostate, each stammering gasp and groan pushes them closer to the edge and Harry is nearly ready to dive, ready to coat Louis' insides and bind himself with him in the most intimate way, but - "Gonna - I want you to come - first - before me, please - do it for me, Lou -"

He receives what he's missed so much in that moment - the tightening of his thighs around his waist, the curl of his toes behind his arse, the toss of his head as he offers himself in full submission, the choked cries , the warm wetness that sprints over their torsos, the inviting clamp of his hole over his cock that pulls his come  _right out of him_. He bites down on his lower lip abruptly, reveling in the way his come spills out around his cock and onto the sheets beneath them.

Their legs slide and tangle together like vines around a rose stem as Harry rolls them on their sides, slipping out and letting his eyes fall close at the noise Louis makes as come leaks out and dampens the area below his arse. Rubbing his nose against his cheek, he smiles faintly. "Reckon we don't want to wake up with dried come on our chests. Not a very comfortable way to fall asleep."

Louis curls his hand lightly around his neck and shoves with a lot less force than he intended, but it's okay because he's thoroughly-fucked and sated as hell. He moves the hand to rest on his shoulder instead. "In the morning. We'll get it in the morning. It's been a long day," he murmurs, vocal chords strung raw and frayed. "A very long day."

"Okay," Harry agrees lightly, but when Louis' fallen victim to the tempting lull of rest, he strips his pillow of its case and wipes their chests clean, opting to skip over Louis' hole and save it for the morning. He stands on wobbling legs to shut the ceiling light off and crawls back into his bed with a resigning yawn, tugging the blankets over them and examining the way Louis looks in the midnight moonlight, ensuring that it's the last thing he sees before he falls asleep. Their fingers embroiled like knots around an anchor, breaths lingering into each other's mouths, veins pulsing with idle heartbeats. Hurricanes and tornadoes colliding in quiet resignation, waving clouds of white flags and calling a truce.

.     .     .

"How does this place have so many coins in stock?" Harry murmurs beside Louis as they sit in blue, metal seats with their backs to the windows. Their laundry sits in front of them in caged baskets, an ominous looking pile of dirtiness. Louis squints his eyes at it in a daring fashion, tightening his hold on Harry's bicep. Harry looks over at him with his head tilted and eyebrows curiously furrowed. "Is it possible to just keep collection of this many coins and never use them?" he ponders, cupping his amount of coins with a small frown that Louis nearly wants to kiss off of his face.

"Anything is possible, Haz," Louis sums up with a shrug, shifting his legs to turn to him. "Anyway, we've been stalling for, like, five minutes or something. We should probably get to sorting this stuff out."

Harry's pulse rockets because  _no, we don't need to get to sorting this stuff out because if we do, then you're gonna find something I don't want you to find yet_. "Er, actually, most of this stuff are the same colors, so that shouldn't be necessary. Wouldn't hurt to put a bit of color in these clothes anyway," he says, prodding the basket with his booted foot. "They're all neutral-colored. Boring colors."

"Yet you continue to buy them," Louis says, plucking a thankfully stainless white top from the pile and twisting his nose at the plainness of it. "I can't believe your fashion sense is this lacking. Tsk, tsk, Harry. Tsk, tsk."

Harry huffs and snatches the shirt from him, leaning over the press a short kiss to his cheekbone before poking his side and standing. "Let's just get these in the wash, yeah? The sooner we get these washed and dried, the sooner we can go back home and resume our...raunchy activities," he murmurs with a smirk, pushing the wheeled basket to two open washers. "And besides, your fashion sense isn't all that much broader than mine, lover boy."

"Well," Louis retorts, opening the circular door and scooping up a few piles of clothes in his arms, "you've got me there, Styles."

The afternoon sunlight streams in through the over-sized windows of the laundromat, old and young folks alike trickling in and out, faces tired and strangely forlorn. The concrete is soaked with Mother Nature's wet and damp rebellion from yesterday, and Louis was hell-bent on finding puddles to splash in on their walk there, hell-bent on  _walking_  (Harry took the piss out of seeing him tip over a bit every time he found a puddle to jump in, no matter how hard Louis glared at him afterwards).

They spend quite some time sitting in the smooth, metal seats, flipping through magazine catalogs and scoffing at the faux stories, pointing out and mocking the most ridiculous ones. They spend more time sharing affectionate kisses, squeezing each other's thighs and gasping quietly in each other's mouths, sunlight reflecting from the dark thickness of their eyelashes as they flutter against their cheeks. Customers look on and shift uncomfortably a few feet from where they stand, but they couldn't be less bothered by it, by the way their cheeks flush as they stare or the wrinkle of disgust in their lips because their fingers are tousled and firm when they hold hands over the arm rest, giggling between breaths. It makes Harry want to visit the laundromat every day after this one, just to kiss Louis like this and let everyone know he's the only one who gets to kiss him like this.

They only take a break when their clothes are finished being cycled by the washing machines, transitioning them to the driers with rosy cheeks and puffed-up lips curved into dazed grins. It's then that Harry's phone rings with the same ringtone he's had for the past two years whenever an unknown number calls him. He startles then moves to pick it up, frowning at the screen and turning to Louis. "I'm gonna take this. Uh, take care of the laundry, yeah? Please," he adds, looking for his gesture of confirmation before he walks outside and presses a finger to his open ear to hear against the obnoxiously loud wind.

Louis stands around shuffling through Harry's clothes for quite a while, mainly because he doesn't want to put his clothes in the drier himself, but when it's clear that he won't be coming back anytime soon, he shifts through them, placing each individual piece of clothing one by one to make the process go slower. It's no fun without Harry there, he realizes, without him making little puns and odd noises and - oh,  _that's_  interesting.

He stumbles upon another white t-shirt, this one with the designed words  _DREAM BOAT_  on the back of it, and there's a garnet-red stain that splatters the collar and center of it, and it's odd because it reminds him very much of how some of his shirts look like weeks after he's had his feast on clueless humans, blood caking the collar of it and -

Oh. His eyes widen, his fingers tightening their grip on the fabric.  _Oh_. His lips go dry, muscles in his arms pulling tight and locking up.  _Oh my God._

_Harry is a -_

Harry makes his way through the entrance when it hits him like a freight train, the way his eye color shifts, the way he directs his tongue back into his mouth when they kiss, how his open-mouthed smiles are few far in between. His eyes fall on the shirt in his hands, darting back up to his face with eyebrows raised. His voice is hoarse like he's gone too long without speaking. "Louis -"

Louis' fingers are trembling like they haven't in forever - he can't feel his hands, really. "You - you're -"

"Yeah," Harry breathes, shoulders slumping as his jaw slacks in defeat, the tips of his fangs twinkling in the second-rate lights. "Yeah, but can we go somewhere else to talk about this - shit, I thought it would get it out this time -"

Louis sniffs it, can't really get a hold over his actions, can't align his brain and his limbs. "This is  _lamb_  blood. There aren't even any lambs  _around here_  -"

"Somewhere else, please," Harry whispers, more of a hiss. His eyes flicker, and Louis wants to black out.

Louis barely registers that the shirt is still in his hand until his fingernails scrap against the stained collar. He blinks. "Why didn't you - why didn't you tell me? We said no more secrets or lies, and now -"

"I wasn't ready to tell you. I was going to, trust me, I was going to later on today because I figured  _oh, he'll find out if I don't say something myself and that won't be good at all_  and now we're here, aren't we?" He exhales a sigh, tugging at Louis' middle finger and examining his hands like they're the most intricate things he's ever seen. "And I know you're probably wondering why I never told you when we were kids and, like, truth be told, I was more than a little bit ashamed to be one. You know, they throw us away, throw us in the ground and hope for the best for mankind. I wasn't even supposed to  _be_  like this, but - the guy my mom had sex with, he was a vampire and he didn't tell her. Probably because it's not something you go around telling some random person on the street in this day and age. But, anyway, I got lucky. They mixed up my tests with some other poor kid, and before I was four years old, my fangs were growing in and my mom figured it out right then." He shrugs, cheeks hot. "Not like she was going to take me back to the hospital and tell them they made a mistake with my tests. That mistake was practically a godsend for us."

Louis licks his lips, frowning. "So whoever got your tests - they're dead now, aren't they?"

"Without a doubt."

"Oh."

Harry's breath leaves him in a rush on an exhale as he falls back against the brick wall, shoulders slumped like somebody who's been broken down by the world far too many times and head bowed. He shrugs again, and Louis can tell he's going to cry and that wasn't how he wanted their day to turn out whatsoever. "Sometimes, if I think about it too much, I just wanna bury myself and wonder how it felt to be in their place, to be a normal person and die like that, in a coffin that wasn't meant for your kind. Sometimes I think about how much I don't deserve to be here, to be able to breathe the air that I wouldn't need anyhow because I can never die. I dunno, sometimes I feel like an accident."

Tear drops are dripping onto the concrete for what Louis can see, and he slides a hand over his hunched shoulders, squeezing the curve where his neck and shoulder meet. His eyes are wet enough for the threat of tears to be more than a little menacing because Harry feels like an  _accident_ , and his throat is clumping up with every word he wants to spit out and tell him and - "Harry," he breathes, voice cracking. "You can't blame yourself for something that wasn't ever your fault. You didn't walk from your mother's womb and crawl on that counter top and switch the tests around for your favor. Yeah, it was a mistake, but it wasn't a mistake  _you made._  If you're an accident, then you're the best accident that's happened to everyone you've ever touched and loved with that immobile heart of yours. Do you understand, love? You can't blame yourself over a mistake that wasn't your fault. It's like feeling guilty over your sibling breaking your mother's wine glass - it wasn't your fault, you didn't make it happen."

Harry nods like he understands, like he's letting it sink in, but Louis has been where he is, blaming himself from something he never laid a finger on. He brushes his hand over his head, fingers getting caught in his curls.  _He'll get it in due time. That's okay. This is okay. We're both patching ourselves up, and that's okay because we're doing it on our own together._  He presses his lips to his forehead, letting the cold sweat collect on his mouth and sighing gently as his fingers curl around his wrist.

"Come to Holmes Chapel with me?" Harry asks quietly, squeezing his wrist lightly, but his hand feels like an one hundred pound weight, anchoring him where he stands.

Louis pulls back with knitted eyebrows, but his hand never leaves him - it's like there are magnets beneath his skin and Harry has the opposite pole. "What for?"

"My old friends from when I was a toddler just called and they have this holiday reunion get away, you know, just old friends holing up on a farm in our respectable cabins. His family's loaded, so it'd be a fun time, probably, and - I want you to come. I want to show them off to you, let them know that I've got someone who's taken up all the space in my heart. And you know how you get around the holiday break - you're in my house more than I am, so. Will you? Come to Holmes Chapel with me, I mean."

Louis gazes down at him, at his bright eyes and unruly curls in this heavy afternoon light, and his gut twists at the thought of daring to say no to him - not because it'd make his face fall like the sun does at night, but because he wants this. He wants to meet all of Harry's old friends and let them know that his name is tattooed on his heart - he knows because he can feel the embossed letters of it against his rib cage with every tight jolt and dull thud. He wants to capture this feeling, any feeling that Harry causes him to feel, and keep it trapped in a glass jar made of all of his spoken secrets and the endless string of memories he's got - the good, the bad; the graceless and the graceful.

"Yes," he breathes, letting his hand fall to cup the side of his face. "Okay, I'll come. I want to come with you."

The crinkles that fold his eyes as he grins luminously up at him, the way his grip tightens around his wrist, the laughter that escapes his mouth like an innocent freed from prison, the way his eyes flicker from moss to sea foam green - all of that, is more than worth it. The way he kisses him like he's all he's ever needed and all he's ever wanted, is more than worth it.

This, what they have right here, is more than worth it.

.     .     .

Harry sits in the driver's seat in front of Louis' house on the curb, keeping the engine rumbling as he taps his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of a song he doesn't know. There's a perfectly good driveway he could've parked in, but he's anxious to get on the road - he's got this knack for making car drives longer than they really are, always ends up finding something new one way or another.

Louis stands on the porch with his mother, exchanging words and tight, swaying hugs, and maybe he doesn't like being there at times, with how quiet it is over family dinners, with how they can't seem to look each other in the eye for longer than a minute like she's afraid of what she'll see there, but she's always sat with him to talk about how he's feeling about something, always given him a never-ending amount of support and love, and he's more than thankful for having what others don't. He pulls back, squeezing her shoulders and telling her that he'll be back by his birthday - in a week and a half - before turning and walking down the driveway with his lips curved in a gentle smile, eye sparkling as they land on Harry.

"Hello, love," he sighs as he slips into the passenger seat, landing a kiss on his lips and giving the curve of his neck a soft squeeze. He tosses his luggage on the floor of the backseat behind him. "I'm guessing this won't be a very long drive, hmm? Nothing ever really is, where we're living."

"Actually," Harry quips as he pulls away from the curb and onto the street, "it's not. But - I've got things to show you. So if I conveniently get lost, it won't be all that troubling."

"Yeah?" Louis asks, squeezing his wrist and not really expecting an answer, just soaking in the fact that he's special enough to Harry for him to show him things he's never seen before, willing to get them lost if that's what it takes. The paleness of the morning sun is a sight for sore eyes and he could catch it with the camera sitting in his lap, but the real thing he wants to capture is the color of Harry's eyes in this light - eyes burnished in shades of green, chartreuse with shards of mint. His skin is almost glittering, filling in the brand new stereotypes from young adult books about jaded romances. "I bet," he murmurs, stroking every bit of skin he can reach on his wrist and his hand.

The first fifteen minutes are filled with easing silence and stops and turns, and Louis watches people go about their regular routines, seeing one person talk animatedly on their mobile as they shuffle through their bag in search of something, cradling a cup of some hot substance, and he briefly hopes that they don't get run over and - they're turning onto a dirt road obscured by a shrub of oak trees leaning over it like they're trying to protect it. He turns his head to Harry with a frown. "Where are we headed? Are we gonna get conveniently lost?"

Harry nods discreetly, car jerking along with the bumps and dips in the road, dirt clouding up around them and making Louis squint his eyes as if he's trying ward the minerals from getting in his eyes even though the windows are closed tight. Harry reaches over and taps his thigh, leaning over the steering wheel and staring ahead. "Dig in the glove compartment for the album that has  _Hozier_  in the bottom left corner, yeah?"

Louis' eyes brighten, eyebrows quirking upwards in interest. "Ooh, my favorite artist. He certainly has that  _countryside_  feel to his music, if that's even accurate for where we're going. Makes me feel like shoving a handful of wheat in my mouth and sitting in a spring until I shrivel up like a raisin," he says with a laugh, pushing the CD in a slot. "I'm surprised you've got his album in this form. Kinda rare for people to buy albums like this these days."

Harry shrugs a shoulder. "I like having the lyric books; even if there aren't lyrics in them, it's just nice to have. And the CD art, too, I like having that."

"My quirky little lad," Louis coos, reaching over to pinch the area where his dimple digs into his cheeks. Harry snorts and slaps his hand away, only grabbing it back to blow raspberries to his palm. Louis flushes pleasantly.

They're travelling down an unfamiliar road by the time  _Take Me To Church_  is over and they're wailing the lyrics to  _Angel of Death and the Codeine Scene_ , Louis' legs kicked up on the dashboard, his head thrown back as he makes funny faces at Harry through the rear view mirror. It feels like they're smack in the middle of summer, feels like the windows should be down and the A/C should be running on cold with the heat waves radiating off the ground, but this is good, too, them with their neutral-colored beanies and windows fogged around the edges, hands coated with cold sweat beneath their mittens as the A/C trudges to give them warmth. The road is thin the farther down they drive, the edges filled with ditches and odd dips, but Louis feels more safe than he ever has in a long while, like he's gotten a stamp of approval to be himself from the ghost of his soul.

Louis pulls his camera out, snapping swift pictures of the scenery by track seven, the bass-line and deep thrum of the cello vibrating the windows as melodies tremble on sound waves, and Louis knows he can sing - it's a given, having partaken in chorus when he was in grade school, but Harry is staring at him through the corner of his eye like he's carrying one of the wonders of the world right there in his mouth as he carries the higher tones of the song. "We lay here, for years or for hours, thrown here or found; to freeze or to thaw," he sings, stroking his index finger against the leather and flushing at the way Harry's mouth falls open. "So long, we'd become the flowers."

"Two corpses we were, two corpses I saw," Harry sings along, letting his fingers fall between his as he drives leisurely down the road, the evening sun heavy in hues of gold.

And maybe he can't be blamed when he begins to doze off to the sound of Harry's voice by the final track, body slumps into submission by slumber at the warmth of Harry's hands, the gentle glimmer of his eyes, the soft rocking of the car battling the bumps in the road.

.     .     .

_"Hahn - ahm -"_

_It's dark and dim where Louis' face is pressed into the fabric of his pillow, moans muffled where his mouth is stuffed with it and everything feels so messy and wet and hot; he never wants it to stop -_

_He lifts his head from the pillow, fighting back against the hand that holds his head back down and it's like coming up from being under water, a trail of saliva following him upwards. He pants, sweat dripping from where it's collected in his collarbones. "Ha - Harry, God -"_

_His thrusts are hot and heavy behind him, the sound of wet skin meeting wet skin in the most filthy way echoing through the room of where ever they are. His quivering hands reach behind him to grip his thigh, his clutch slippery from the sweat that coats his skin. Harry's lips are moving soundlessly on the space between his shoulder blades, tongue lapping up the salty wetness there, lips curving in a grin at his choked gasps and disgruntled whimpers. "Baby..."_

"Baby. Louis, wake up!"

Louis awakes with a jolt to Harry's hand, heavy and warm, shaking his shoulder as he seats himself in the driver's seat. He blinks slowly, wiping his eyes and shoving his hands under his thighs, cheeks hot with the remnants from his dream. He rubs the side of his face on his shoulder in hopes that Harry doesn't notice his state, shifting to conceal his half-hard dick. "Hey," he murmurs, eyes surveying the car park they're in - lights from the grocery store in the front illuminate their faces in the impending night. Perhaps in this darkness, Harry won't notice how constipated he looks, with his face twisted up in confused and abrupt arousal.  _Oh God.._.

Harry leans a bit over the wheel and frowns at him. "You alright? Do you need to step out of the car for a bit and get you some fresh air? We've been cooped up in this car since noon after all, and it's about six o' clock now."

Louis closes his eyes and scratches the back of his neck, flush deepening.  _Well, communication is what this is all about, isn't it?_  "No, um. I had a...dream about you," he mumbles, folding his hands in his lap. "It's nothing, though! You know, it'll go away, eventually," he interjects, looking at him from the corner of his eye. And he can't put a finger on why he's so embarrassed about it, but then again, it's not one of those things you can exactly take in stride. Maybe it's the fact that he's hard and he can't do anything about it except bid it to go away.

Harry is looking at him with his eyes flickering like the Christmas lights wrapped around the street poles, the sunset a soft and sweet teal blue, and it has Louis pressing his lips together in a thin light, has him tightening his hands into fists. His breath hitches in a way he doesn't mean for it to, but it happens anyway and Harry's hand is launching over to grip his tense thigh. He shifts and gulps as Harry leans in, pale streetlights spilling onto his face like coconut milk. "I've got a different method for making that go away, love."

He's absolutely  _shuddering_  with delight at this point, can feel the heat of his breath slipping down from his neck to his collarbones. He's nodding even though he wasn't being asked a question. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, we can - okay."

His hand is sliding farther up his thigh, and he sighs with pleasure when the tips of his fingers brush lightly against his clothed erection, and it's times like this where he wants to clonk himself up the head for forgetting that as much as he can be a tease, Harry almost has him beat. Harry kisses the edge of his jaw with wet lips, and all Louis can think about is how much he wants those lips on his own. "What happened in your dream, hmm? You wanna tell me?"

Louis nods, his ear brushing rhythmically against the top of Harry's head as he exhales breathily. "Yeah, you were - we were in a room somewhere, and you were fucking me from behind and you were holding me down. And I could hardly lift my head from the pillow I had my face pressed against because that's how hard you held me. Half expected my wrists to be bruised when I woke up," he laughs, but it's choked and quiet because Harry is full-on cupping him now, palm pressed tightly against his crotch. He grounds down on it, can't help himself when he whimpers and turns his cheek into Harry's hair.  _"Yeah."_

And then he's gone, and Louis is opening the eyes he never remembered closing, looking back at him with bewildered eyes as he watches him reach in the backseat. "Got - I bought some things in the store, and you wouldn't  _believe_  all the stuff they've got in there, for such a small store," Harry elaborates, coming back around with a bottle of lube. "They've got pocket packets, too. Got those just in case, as well. For our exhibitionist adventures," he snickers, popping the top open with one hand and unzipping Louis' trousers with the other. "Hips up, love."

Louis' eyes dart around the barren parking lot, eyebrows raised. "We're - we're doing this right here in the car park? Somebody could catch us, Harry -"

"The twitch I just felt is telling me you're less than bothered by that prospect, though, yeah?" Harry breathes, rubbing his palm to his covered cock. Louis hates how red his face probably is, hates how hard he's breathing just from being palmed and touched lightly like this.

Louis' swallow, clear and pronounced in their small space, is all he's got as an answer, and Harry smirks at him as he squeezes him, his thumb dipping beneath the elastic of the waistband to reveal the tip of his cock, swollen a pretty garnet red and soaked with precome. It's nearly embarrassing, how hard he is already, but he finds that he can't be blamed, not with how Harry is looking at him, not with how his hand is moving over him at an agonizing pace, not when someone could be watching them do this from the privacy of their car - the thought is more and more appealing the longer they sit there, cocks twitching in the confines of fabric.

Maybe he  _is_  a bit of an exhibitionist.

Harry has his trousers and pants around his ankles now, his legs spread in the passenger seat, his hand gripping the armrest on the door as he breathes heavily at how  _good_  his lubed hand feels on him, how badly he  _wants_  this. Through pleasure-fogged eyes, he watches Harry's bulge twitch aggressively in his pants, overcome with the need to have him feel what he's feeling, too. He reaches over and presses his palm into his bulge, gasping. "You, too. I wanna touch you, too. I c'n do that, yeah? You - you're just as hard as me," he whines, jerkily unzipping his fly and reaching into his underwear with a dry hand, pulling him out and collecting precome on the tip of his finger. He brings it to his mouth and sucks, eyes falling shut at the sweet sourness of it.

"Fuck," Harry gasps, taking his hand off of him and wiping it on the leg of his jeans. His hands are shaking like never before, would rival an earthquake of the highest altitude as he struggles to put the keys back in the ignition. "We've got to - we've got to get out of here and go somewhere private. Wanna get you alone so the only one who can you hear making noises like that is  _me_."

Louis finds himself nodding along with him, head thrown back against the seat as he brings a hand down to himself, gripping the base of his dick to stop himself from coming so soon, face flushed deep in hues of red because the concept of getting caught in his most bare and raw moments, the thought of having people see how wrecked and pliant he can be, is getting him harder than anything ever has before. He  _wants_  people to see how good Harry makes him feel,  _wants_  people to see how good they look when they're together in the most intimate way. He moans brokenly and squeezes harder, warm precome squirting out from the tip. "Ha -  _rry_."

He glances over to him as the car stumbles down the road, to the wet head of his cock and he longs to wrap his lips around it, longs to make Harry feel as good as he's making him feel, even if he's not touching him anymore. With a quiet whimper, he maneuvers himself over the compartment in the middle, his cheekbone bumping into the tip of cock, wetness spreading on his skin and it's just like his dream, everything is  _hot_  and  _wet_  and  _messy_. He shoves the waistband further down, getting his mouth around him with a satisfactory moan.

It takes Harry the willpower of a thousand monks to keep the car from swerving into a ditch with how his legs are spreading at the heat that yields to him between his legs. He sighs and hisses, eyes flickering from gentle green to sharp grey. He's desperate on him, suckling and slurping and whimpering and moaning, swallowing him down like he wishes there was more he could clog himself up with, and it has Harry thrusting into his mouth more powerfully than he intended, causing him to sputter and choke. He can feel tear drops on his shirt and he almost wants to slow down and pull over, tell him to relax but - oh - the muscles in his throat are contracting, coming to an agreement with the tip of his cock as muffled moans vibrate against his cock. "Oh  _fuck_ ," Harry moans disjointedly, and that's  _it_ , he's turning abruptly into an open field, not caring if he's trespassing because he has to be inside this boy  _now_.

The car jars among the rocks and dips in the soil and it's impaling Louis' mouth onto him even further and Harry feels as though he's got an inferno the size of a castle in his body, on the brim of being ready to blow any minute now. He throws the car in park and grips Louis by the back of his head, pulling him off with a strangled groan. He looks at him from under his eyelashes, and it's miraculous how he doesn't come immediately at how  _ruined_  he looks, cheeks florid and eyes glassy like diamonds, lips wet and inflated like he's been kissed for four days straight with no breaks. And he's looking at him like he's a fountain of water in the middle of a desert, like they're the last two people on this planet and he's sex-starved. "Fucking  _Christ_ , Louis."

"I want you to fuck me," he replies, voice breathy and grating, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks, "right here in this backseat. Right now, yeah?"

Harry clutches his side before he can say much else, manhandling him until he's stumbling in the backseat with stuttered, breathless laughter. Harry wants to fuck him until his mind can't match up the correct fragments to laugh anymore, can't click the right puzzle pieces together to make his lips curve in that dexterous grin. Harry wants to fuck it all out of him. He makes him get on his hands and knees, and he isn't protesting because this is what he wanted, this is what he dreamed of. He climbs in the back behind him, popping the lube bottle back open and wetting his fingers as he spreads his fingers out on his lower back. The windows are fogging up at the seams. "Y'think you're so funny, don't you, Lou?"

Louis nods his bowed head with quirked eyebrows and smirking lips, like his world hasn't fallen right off its axis and into the dusk abyss. He jolts as wet fingers meet his hole in the most inviting way, the tip of a finger dipping in readily. He shrugs one shoulder as best as he can with straining arms. "Yeah, I reckon I do," he breathes, sighing as the finger sinks in to the knuckle, his heat warm and clenching around it. He feels a thousand sparklers travelling up his spine in the form of goosebumps, back arching to get more in, hole twitching greedily.

Harry pulls it out with a tsk and a frown, a disapproving shake of his head. "Well, that just won't do right now, will it? D'you expect me to fuck you with that kind of mindset? Think this is a game? I'll show you how fun it can be," he murmurs, fingering him leisurely and circling his walls with a carefree tilt of his head, as if his severed whines aren't making him want to turn himself inside out. He leans down and licks around his fingers as he inserts another one, seizing one of his arsecheeks with a free hand as he moans loudly, the sound making the windows shake. Harry never wants to stop making him brew those noises, each one of them more sinful and lethal than the last. He pulls back and licks his lips with his eyes fallen shut. "Dunno how you taste this good all the time. How do you do it, Lou? God, you're sweet  _everywhere_ , aren't you? Your mouth, your cock, your  _arse_ , Christ."

Louis feels like a fool for forgetting how good Harry is at talking dirty, as cloying as he can be all of the time. He shoves his arse back, huffing as the tips of his fingers miss his prostate  _just so_. "Jackass!" he cries, fucking himself back with a steady and desperate pace.

Harry squeezes him with rough force and a hearty frown, glaring down at his back as he slips another finger in. "I don't think I like your tone very much, love," he grumbles, jabbing his prostate head on now just to watch him fall apart, watch his arms collapse beneath him like withering hurricanes, watch how his shoulders tremble with a sob. "'S alright. I'll have you singing a much different tune in a little bit, won't I?"

Harry fingers him for a while longer, just to watch his fingers tug at his hole and hear his astonished sobs, before his dick twitches persistently against his abdomen, and he slides them out with utmost care. He wipes his hand on his jean-clad thigh, pulling both his trousers and pants lower down his legs as he pours more lube over himself and spreads it with discreet tugs. "You ready, love?"

" _Yeah, yes, please please please_ ," Louis rambles, wiggling his bum back and smiling faintly as Harry's wet cock head meets his hole.  _Finally_.

Harry drills in little by little because being a tease when they've turned their radars in their minds down to the lowest setting, is a hobby of his. He clutches the skin of his hip in a bruising grip to hear him groan, presses his hips to the heated softness of his arse to hear him sigh, rolls his hips for his favorite kind of noise - the feathery, stammer of a cross between a gasp and a moan, the hitch in his throat like he's blundered upon the most pleasant surprise.

The head nudges his prostate along in his gentle thrusts, and it has Louis calling out and clenching, his hand reaching out to grip his thigh and spur him on. He embraces the skin with his hand, trying to get as close to his arse as his arm will allow, shuddering in his moans. "Come  _on_ , go faster. Know you can. Want you to ruin me, c'mon."

Louis doesn't expect him to follow through with his requests, doesn't expect him to listen to him this time because he pulls out and thrusts back in with genuine earnest, like he's truly taking it to heart. The windows are fogging up with the condensation of their breaths and exertion as Harry grips his hips with unyielding hands, and Louis can feel the bruises blossoming over his skin, sangria purple and peacock blue, hues of passion well-spent.

Louis pushes back with just as much force as he can muster to show that he's doing everything to give himself up, to show that he  _loves_  being picked apart like this, with unforgiving hands and heavy caresses. He reaches up and lets his hand slide across the clouded glass, attempting to push himself up without having his face shoved into the door, but he wouldn't mind it if it happened, wonders what it would be like to have his face pressed up against the glass, mouth hung open in sweet submission.

And he doesn't know how he ended up being this close to the edge of earth, finding that he doesn't ever want this to end, never wants the feeling of frayed veins tingling all over his body like sparklers in the spring to leave him. He sort of wants to always feel like the world is his and Harry's and theirs alone, wants to feel like he can encompass the heart of everything lovely and moral in the world.

He comes against the leather when he feels wetness spread inside of him, feels the deep rumbling of Harry's groans and feels his stuttered thrusts, streaks of white blemishing the worn interior, moans fractured and amplified. Their love, amplified.

.     .     .

The moon is out in full by the time they've changed out of their clothes and cleaned themselves up as much as possible, driving down to Harry's favorite dinner when he's out of town - it's small and hardly noticeable where it's located when they pull up in the parking lot. Louis knows he would've mistaken it for a gas station, but the lights are so amber and flushed, he can just feel it from where they stand in the front door, hand in hand like they're afraid to unlatch. Louis loves with the heart of a thousand beating drums, piercing and relentless, scorching in the rhythm of the night.

They find a nice seat by the window under the warm lights, and the waitresses there greet Harry like they've known him his whole life and they haven't gone a day without seeing him. Louis nearly wants to ask how many times he's come here, how many times he's run away and come right back without anybody noticing. Louis always wants to run away with him like this, wants to rediscover open spaces and contrive all the hidden nooks in his brain and un-beating heart. And - oh, yeah. The moon. The full moon.

His veins are thickening his arms as they sit there and talk like they aren't both starving for something other than food. He shifts more than twice, three times, four in his seat, scratching under his collar and staring at the fresh-blooded bodies walking past them, twisting his legs around each other so he stays grounded there, doesn't stand up and take the life of a mortal in front of everyone there. His eyes aren't the ductile color of cobalt like they usually are after a good fuck - no, they're gleaming sharp garnet, the color of the blood that  _needs_  to be on his tongue. Preferably sooner than later. He exhales sharply. "Harry - outside. We need to go outside and wait, I can't do this," he rambles, voice low and out of pitch. Unfamiliar to his racing mind.

Harry looks no different from him - he's been digging his nails into the skin of his palm to confuse his mind and make it think of anything else other than his body's need for blood. He nods curtly, smacking his dry lips and standing, eyes an incandescent shade of grey. Louis' cheeks burn with greed and arousal at seeing him this way, with a tightened jaw and a feral stance, shoulders stiff to the touch as he smooths his hand over his shoulder blades beneath his arm. They step back out into the chilled winter night's air, turning a corner and waiting in the shadows, like vampires do best.

A figure comes around the corner, veiled with the obscurity of shadows, muttering to themselves about  _this damned cold_  as they move their hands about. They don't stand a chance, don't even guess that there's someone else there with them, gazing at them in this dimness.

Harry launches forward first.

.     .     .

It sparks over his skull like fireworks, the way blood slides down his throat like the finest wine. He relishes in it, savors the taste of it, eyes rolling back in an erotic fashion as he suckles from the poor mortal's neck. Any morsel of apology and regret he managed to feel before they pounced is gone now, and his world tilts this way and that, swaying back forth like a buoyed boat. It's heavy on his tongue where he holds it and pulls back for he and Harry to swap between their mouths, lips moving and tongues swirling. Their faces are shadowed as the dimness thickens the more the night wanes, but their wavelengths are electrifying and invigorate, luminous from a thousand miles away and a thousand miles more. Louis feels like he's drowned, weighing down heavily with his foot tied to an anchor and he doesn't want the feeling to stop, wants his chest filled like this for as long as it'll last.

They stumble back to the car with breathless giggles and clammy hands, the moon following them in its part obsidian and part porcelain gaze, and they drive down the road aimlessly and recklessly, them and their single headlight.

Louis doesn't admit that he's drunk off of it, that he's drunk off of feeling so wild and untamed, like every barrier that's ever held him in has been broken down to dust. He's swimming in Harry's smell as his large fedora sits on his head, wind gliding between his fingers like dry ocean waves as his hand hangs out of the window, unlit cigarette in hand. He decides that running away like this with him is his favorite hobby. And that he loves Harry.

His lips are still ruby red and sticky , still vibrating from how his teeth sunk into the same bite marks Harry made as the old stars of the night glitter and burn in his eyes. I never wanna leave his side, he thinks, his hand slipping over to wrap around Harry's wrist and place his hand on his thigh, where it belongs. Where it's always belonged.  _His hands belong on my body._

A car passes them by, headlights greeting their faces hello and goodbye as Harry briefly turns to him and flashes a smile, teeth and fangs on full display. He squeezes his thigh, fingers digging into the fleshy warmth. Louis loves him with every nerve in his body, with every cell in his skin. He loves him with every bit of breath he breathes in and out, with every bit of space the universe takes up, galaxies bursting and expanding in his chest. Nobody will ever be able to defy love, but some people are going to know how it feels. And it feels like this, Louis is sure, it feels like there's not enough space in your body to fill up with the amount of affection and adoration and  _love_  you have for someone. It feels like you can't love them enough, and it feels like you can't love them more. It feels like the whole universe is trying to fit its way into your chest and the only bit that you feel like you can use is the amount of space you're taking up with them.

The feeling sends a shudder down his spine, crackling pleasantly at the base of his back. It's only with impulse that he leans over and sucks a light mark into the curve of his neck, only with impulse that he presses a kiss to his jawline. It's only with impulse that he gives his lifeless heart up, wraps it with cartilage and ties it with a bow of veins. _It's his, if he wants it. If he'll offer me his own._

They stop among the mouth of a river, where the moon shines down and fractures like mosaic art on the surface. They sit in each other's space, exchanging breaths and touching mouths idly. Louis' eyelashes mingle with Harry's, and he's compelled to say it, compelled to break down what little is left of his barriers. All too willing to give this to Harry again, and all too willing to let him keep it. "If I," he pauses for a breath against his lips and resumes, "If I gave this to you again, completely. If I told you that you could have me again, if I could have you just as much, would you keep me? Like -" It feels like he's sinking his fingers in winter sands, slow and cool and sharp. His hands twitch where they are holding his thigh. "Would you - take care of it? Take care of me?"

Harry almost tells him _You know I will_ , but he doesn't say it, can't because he doesn't know. After everything he's put him through, he doesn't know if he'll take care of him, doesn't know if he'll keep him and have him and protect this vibrant love, running rampant in their fiery veins. He leans his forehead against his and nods with as much honesty as he can muster in a gesture so simple. "I would. I will. I won't let it go again, okay? I'm not letting you go. I promise," he whispers, and he can't quite figure out why their voices are hushed and quieted in this space they've made for themselves. "I promise."

The skin of Louis' forehead warms under the contact and under the curl of adoration sprouting beneath his chest like the rosiest garden with sharper thorns. It comes in pangs and waves, tsunami tides of heat and unbearable relief. He's taking his hand and jumping for the fall here in this moment, in their translucent bubble. "Okay. Okay."

They filter out of the car and into the winter's chilled night, but crickets still click their legs in stuttering symphonies and Louis finds that he's warm enough, having Harry's heart to hold there in his hands. Harry nabs some towels from the trunk and takes his hand as he passes him by, making them both stumble to the mouth with warm cheeks and open eyes. They strip themselves, the sound of clothes shifting and faint voices, and capsize into the water, chill bumps erupting over their moonlit skin.

Harry's hands reach him first, hands wet with river water as he brushes his fingers against his mouth to wipe the blood from them. Louis touches his hand to his shoulder as his lips stretch into a smile. "Guess we should've brought some smaller cloths along with us instead of this makeshift washing with our fingers," he mumbles, stroking his skin with his index finger.

Harry shakes his head and pulls him to his chest close by his waist, pressing curt kisses to the underside of his jaw as he tips his head back and runs his hands along the curved planes of his back until they make a stop above his bum. "Not necessarily," he says, voice low and thundering in their chests, rattling their rib cages.

Louis shivers against him and lays his arm around his neck, crowding his face into his neck as a flush spreads over his face and chest. He can't put a finger on what's making them so...active tonight. _Maybe it's because it's been so long since we've been together like this and we're just making up for lost time. Maybe it's the blood and the full moon. Maybe it's just us, with our heated hearts and burning bones._ He reaches behind him and takes his wrist, tugging his hand further down until it fits between his cheeks, fingers clammy beneath the water. He brushes his lips past his pulse point for them to meet his earlobe, wrap around it, and heave. "Want you to finger me."

It's quick and rushed and messy, fingers stumbling upon his prostate the same way his hand stutters along his length, harsh breaths loud among the soft symphony of insects, moans echoing across the water and back into their mouths, an exchange of air and kisses and bruises. Louis comes against his hip at the same time Harry jerks up into his hand with a grunt, come slipping over his small fingers.

Louis' nerves feel brittle and frayed at the seams, skin wrinkled and clammy from being in the water for this long, sleep curling deep in his limbs and bone marrow. He kisses Harry's glowing skin, breathing deep and slow. "I've loved you," he murmurs to him, "since the moon hung the sun early this morning and to when the sun pasted the moon and stars on the sky this night. Since we were twelve and in your mother's kitchen, shoving each other's face in flour. Since we were ten and I got suspended for fighting a kid who didn't say things that were nice to you. Since we were eight, seven, six, five - since then. I've loved since then and I'll love you after."

.     .     .

The sun touches its canary fingertips to the horizon as Harry drives them down a hill, a dirt road leading to a large farm-looking establishment. Nerves rattle Louis like nothing else ever has because he's never met Harry's old friends, and the last thing he'd want is to be looked at like it's his fault Harry moved back to him when he was eight. "They'll like me, won't they? Right? There's, like, no reason they'd have to not like me - unless you've said something to them, then there'd be a reason -"

"Lou - hey. _Relax_. They're just some old friends, so 's not like they've known me for as long as you have when we haven't really talked in years. Wouldn't really matter if they approved of you or not, to be honest; I'd still come back to you. I'd like for them to meet you, though, just to show everyone else how much you mean to me and how lovely you are. That wouldn't hurt, would it? To show you off," Harry says, eyes gleaming in the late afternoon light. His lips curve in a hint of a smile, and Louis wants to kiss him dizzy and dazed.

He turns the corner of the barn tall and red where it blocks the view of the cabins scattering the land from lakeside to lakeside. There are picnic tables set up all over the place, people milling about with clear cups of beer in their hands, Christmas lights strewn up like stars. It's not nearly as cold here as it is back home and Louis finds himself shedding his coat in favor of the warmer air here, however minuscule.

A trio of men, all stocky and broad-shouldered and dressed in plaid and plain dress shirts tucked in their pants, walk up the car as Harry shuts off the ignition and pushes the door open, turning to grin at him with all the reassurance a person can muster before stepping out to greet them with warm, swaying hugs and claps on the shoulder. They grin fierce and wide at them, eyes crinkling genuinely. Louis warms at the fact that maybe Harry does that to everyone he meets, makes them so viciously joyful that their faces split with smiles so wide they could break the skyline. _I love you I love you I love you I love you -_

"And who's this?" one of them, dark blonde and green eyes, says, making a gesture to him as he startles and gazes at the four of them before stumbling out of the car himself, shutting the door behind them and rounding the car to stand at Harry's side.

"I, uh. My name is Louis," he starts, extending a hand and offering a smile that he hopes isn't as shaky as he knows it is. "I'm his -"

"Boyfriend," Harry says proudly and links an arm around his shoulder, chin tilted upward. Louis flushes heavily as he nods and wraps his arm around his waist, squeezing him close as he sinks into his side. _Boyfriend_. The word sat pretty on his mind, sounds pretty on Harry's lips. He feels a knot tighten in his chest, feels this electric love solidify into something more _vibrant_ and _real_ and _boundless_. His cheeks are heated to the touch, red as the horizon.

The dark blond takes his hand and shakes it firmly, eyes kind and smile polite and Louis doesn't trust that he's being genuine for reasons unknown, but he smiles back just as politely. "My name is Nick. This is Jonathan," he gestures to the brown-haired man, shorter and on the skimpy side, "and Carson," a naturally blond fellow, average in size and height.

They all lean in and take his hand to shake it, and Louis feels his brain trembling with unfamiliarity and apprehension. He doesn't like feeling like this, doesn't like how Nick's eyes twinkle with intentions different from the others. Disquiet sits like a stone in his stomach. _I don't like this._ He grips Harry's hip tighter in an effort to keep his face level.

He looks like he's waiting to get me alone, is what his subconscious tells him and he pushes it back with a mental scandalous gasp because that can't be it. _This isn't a Lifetime movie. I mean, you can't possibly decide if someone is coming onto you before they've even started; the man's only shaken my hand -_

"Louis? You alright, love? You look a bit spaced out there," Harry murmurs to him as they walk to where most people have gathered - the barn. It doesn't have stables or hay or anything of the sort like Louis expected - instead there's a bar and a small stage set up, and tables placed accordingly like they would be in a karaoke bar. People sit with beer bottles and glasses of whiskey as idle conversation mills through the air.

Louis blinks up at him and shifts, twisting his nose up. "I'll tell you later. I've got a - a bit of an odd feeling, but it's probably just nervousness. Probably."

Harry nods and squeezes his shoulder, looking as serious as ever and giving him his undivided attention. Louis loves him twice as much more for that alone, for how he makes him feel as though every word he speaks is worth memorizing like Shakespeare poems. "Yeah, we can absolutely talk about it later. Hell, we'll leave if you're feeling uncomfortable."

Louis loves him ardently, savagely, from his delicate bones to his breakable skin, from his stubborn skull to the peaks of his toes.

.      .     .

They gallivant from corner to corner, and Louis feels like his arm is going to fall right off of his body with how firm people hold his hand and shake it full-bodily. Everyone is happy here, with nostalgic kaleidoscopic eyes and reminiscing smiles. Louis familiarises himself with Harry's old friends and makes a few new ones, and moment he feels as though he's always been here by Harry's side, but maybe it's because it's where he belongs. Where they both belong.

At some point in time, Louis unglues himself from Harry to get them drinks, pressing a messy kiss to his temple and promising that he'll be back as fast as lightning strikes, as if he's going to be away for the rest of forever. It's hard to liberate himself and he almost forgets what it's like touching Harry this often after going without it for so long. He won't dare to imagine a life without it again.

"Two beers, please," he requests, and the bartender nods, turning away from him the moment somebody seizes his arm. It's not Harry. Harry's touch doesn't feel like that. No, this is a rougher hand, knuckles more square and hardened around the edges. _Harry doesn't feel like this._ He turns and finds himself face to face with Nick and -

There's something ugly and twisted in his eyes - it's not like from earlier when he first greeted him, eyes bright and welcoming. There's a cross between a frown and a snarl on his face, and it's doing something terrible to Louis' mood, setting off alarm bells in his brain. "You," he spits. He smells strongly of whisky and some other unnamed alcohol. "You need to understand something. Harry doesn't _need_ you. He doesn't." He hiccups, stumbling closer to him and nearly leaning on him entirely. "I've seen him on social media. God, I was so obsessed with him when we were younger. He was my best friend and then he was _gone_. He left for _you_."

Louis snatches his arm out of his grip and glowers at him, turning to his waiting cups of beer. "You were both _seven_. It was ages ago. Look, mate, you're drunk. You don't know what you're saying or how you're feeling. You know, maybe you're just mixing up how you feel about your grade school ex with Harry -"

His knuckles meet his mouth, and his head knocks back with its force. His hands fly to his mouth, tears welling in his eyes with pain. _Shit_. He stumbles and falls, unaware of all the eyes on them now, but the world is lurching and twirling around him, metaphorical stars spinning above his head and in front of his eyes like flashing lights. "Ow," he whimpers through a mouth full of blood. He swallows it down, finding that the taste isn't pleasurable when it comes from himself.

And then a familiar hand touches his cheek, a voice as deep as the void in his head calling to him. He pulls himself out of the void for this, for Harry, as he blinks his eyes open. His cheeks are wet with tears he didn't know he was crying, and his tongue is numb to him. "Th'nk 'm bleedin'. M'lip is -" He stops, mouth throbbing with pain in intense aching waves. He closes his eyes again and curses his fragile face.

"Babe, just - sit there. We'll get you a towel and some ice packs. It'll be alright," he hums, stroking his hair. Only then does Louis consider the aftermath of Nick.

He stands behind him in a clear daze, fists loosely curled at his sides. He lifts one hand up to rub at his face as he seats himself on a stool behind him. Louis knows, by the tightness in his shoulders and the stiffness in his jaw, that Harry is restraining himself from doing any damage, from getting angry and shoving his fists directly down his throat. He looks like he's out for blood with how his eyes glow scarlet. Louis whimpers as he tries to speak and taps the corner of his eye. "Your eyes," he says. "'Arry, your -"

"I won't look at anyone," he says, eyes downcast. "I won't let them see my eyes, just - give me a moment." He laughs, but it lacks real humor. "The amount of damage I could do..."

As someone approaches with the requested towels and ice packs, Louis sits up fully, frowning at Harry's adverted eyes as he wraps the ice packs in the towel. He reaches up without looking to touch the towel to his mouth, but Louis stops him, hand wrapped around his wrist. "Hey. Look a' me?" He does, and his eyes are almost ivory, speckled with gold shards. Louis swallows around the blood again. "'M okay. Promise. See, it doesn't e'en hurt tha' bad -"

"But you're _hurt_ ," Harry says, shoulders slumping and face crumpling with upset. "I - we promised forever ago that we would protect each other, and the second I'm not around you, then things like this happen. It almost feels like _I'm_ hurting you, the more I keep letting it happen."

Louis releases his wrist and settles his hand in his hair, fingers tangling in the soft tufts. He knows this, knows how he gets when someone touches him in any other way that's not gentle. (In fifth year, Louis tripped over some twats feet on the bus and cracked his glasses, violet and garnet blossoming across his left cheek with the palms of his hands turning red. Harry - he turned with fists squeezed tight with fury, pummeled the boy until his knuckles were bruised and bloody. He was suspended from riding the bus for the rest of the month for it.) "It wasn't your fault," he murmurs, speech sharpening with the towel pressed to his mouth. "Not this time, okay? Fresh hearts and a clear conscience, yeah?"

The side of Harry's mouth twists up in a grimace, like he's going to disagree, but he nods instead, solemn and slow. "Fresh hearts and a clear conscience."

The crowd has long since dispersed and spread out again, and as the night numbs and deadens, Harry takes him to a reserved cabin, strips him bare and presses his hands to his aching body in sure strokes of his hand and gentle pressure in his palms. He caresses and kisses his thighs, letting his teeth cave in the golden flesh, and takes him into his mouth with moist lips and fluttering eyes. Harry loves like he touches - fingertips light and perpetual and gentle, but it's magnetic and voltaic all the same. Louis wants this all the time. He wants him all the time. He loves him all the time.

.     .     .

The next two weeks are in a haze, in rosy kaleidoscopic blur - long kisses between fleeting ones, lips swollen and eyes sparkling and cheeks flushed and chests bursting with _a lot a lot a lot_. Louis never wants to stop feeling this way, wants his blood and bones running vibrant this way always as long as Harry is here to feel this way with him. His throat is dry with how many times he's murmured and whispered and shouted and cried _I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you_ , lips cracked dry with it, but he never tires of saying it; it feels good in his mouth, feels right on his tongue, like Harry's does when they lie down with their mouths meeting and courting to each other's will and desire.

(He'll call Zayn later, tell him _Well, this is how this happened there and this is what we did here and this is I feel now_ and he won't hear his resigned sigh, but instead the curl of his lip, the echo of his laughter and Liam's in his ear. He knows then, that this is what he's wanted since Harry freed him from his wooden cage and stone cold limbs that rainy night. Harry lodges in his chest, fits like a key, and it's there that he remains. Louis shelters him there, and Harry keeps him wrapped up in the concave of his chest, boxes him in those porcelain bones and rubbery veins. This love runs wild and untamed and free and rampant. It's theirs to hold and to have, and it's theirs alone.)

Harry will ask later, when they're sat with their feet propped up on the dashboard as the sun splays itself over the horizon like spilled paint and when the water shivers and trembles with the whips of the wind. He'll ask him then, with their palms against one another and their fingers slotted between the other's spaces, the hearts beating in time with each ocean tide Louis feels welling up in his chest the longer they sit there, touching and staring at each other like it's the last time they'll ever see each other after tomorrow. He'll ask with his eyes with open and his tumid, pink lips, eyes gold and green and every color Louis loves and never wants to stop loving, never wants to stop seeing. "What does this feel like now? What do I feel like now that we've fixed what I've broken?" It's a whisper and murmur and a secret. Louis loves all of his secrets; he'll spend the rest of his life prying them from him.  _The rest of my life._

He turns to him, eyes burnished with the impending stars of the night and this.  _This:_ what he's feeling.  _This:_ what he has.  _This:_ the rest of eternity in the palm of his hand, soft and pale and willing. "Everything," he whispers. "It's feels like everything good and right and wonderful. Everything."

**Author's Note:**

> feedback and kudos are highly appreciated!!! i hope you guys liked it!!!
> 
> find me on tumblr at [niightchanges](http://niightchanges.tumblr.com/) and find me on twitter [@patrochillles](https://twitter.com/patrochillles/) if you've any inquiries and thoughts to send me or discuss with me!!!
> 
> (p.s. soRRy about the ending it was kind of sudden and i just wanted to be finished with it - you can send me questions about it as well if you're confused!!!)


End file.
